When Frenchwoman Mireille Guiliano was a girl, she spent a year abroad in the United States, during which time she gained so much weight, that her father, upon her return, greeted her by saying she looked like, “un sac de patates,” or, a bag of potatoes. After putting on even more pounds in her first semester of college, a doctor set her on the right path by having her eat seasonal foods in moderation, and to focus on the pleasure of eating.
Later, she became a spokesperson, executive and CEO for champagne maker Clicquot, and people would always ask her how she could make food and wine the center of her life and yet remain thin. The answer — that French women don’t get fat — eventually became the subject of her New York Times number-one bestseller by the same name. That idea also launched her into a new career — a type that John Butman, in his new book, “Breaking Out: How to Build Influence in a World of Competing Ideas,” calls the “idea entrepreneur.” Continue reading...
