But despite those odds, Collier has found an interesting way to exact her own form of leverage. Broadwave intends to roll out its service through at least 100 affiliates, each of which already owns the broadcasting rights in one or two cities. The affiliates would also put up about three-quarters of the $1.5 billion needed for a nationwide launch. The affiliates' owners, all handpicked by Collier, have formed a grassroots political army, lobbying members of Congress and senators from their home states to convince the Federal Communications Commission to give Broadwave a crack at the market.
No one who knows Collier would be surprised at her innovative strategy. Collier is a master at finding unconventional ways to tackle problems. Small wonder, since her own adolescence owed more to Eastern mysticism than to Leave It to Beaver. Indeed, by age 21, she had already penned her life's story. That precocious autobiography provides a window into what makes this woman tick.
Collier's book, Soul Rush: The Odyssey of a Young Woman of the '70s (William Morrow & Co., 1978), is, essentially, a chronicle of her spiritual development, and it reads like the diary of the brainy, excruciatingly self-aware girl that she was. It breezes casually through her experience smoking pot, using LSD, watching porn with mobsters, and making mischief with Abbie Hoffman -- all by age 16. There's a brief retelling of her sexual assault at the hands of man who picked her up while she was hitchhiking, and then an exhaustive recollection of her move to a commune at age 16 and her experience in an ashram one year later.
That flirtation with Eastern spiritual practice has proved remarkably useful in the rough-and-tumble Western world of commerce. "At the ashram, we did things like staying up all night and meditating, things that taught us how to focus our minds," she says. "Those skills never leave you, and they're something that I still feel very connected to. There are times in my current work -- and certainly in the past -- when I've been involved in stressful business situations. Drawing on those experiences has definitely helped me maintain perspective."
Not everyone should bag an MBA in favor of an ashram. But the experience helped Collier see huge gaps in industries that appear crowded to everyone else.
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