Five Rules For Life: REBBL CEO Sheryl O’Loughlin

Sheryl O’Loughlin is the CEO of REBBL, a Bay Area-based company that makes coconut-milk elixirs available at Whole Foods. She’s also the author of Killing It! An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Keeping Your Head Without Losing Your Heart. Before coming to REBBL, she was the Executive Director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. Her resume includes CEO positions at Plum Organics and Clif Bar, where she led the concept development and introduction of Luna Bar we all know and love. Sheryl CERTAINLY has knowledge to impart, so I tapped her for her Five Rules For Life. Here they are, in her words.

1. Don’t save love for home. Love belongs in everything we do, whether we’re leading a team at work, weeding our garden, or reading to our children at bedtime.

2. Live with bold humility. Take risks and believe in yourself enough to go for it, but be humble enough to ask for advice, admit wrongdoing, and learn from mistakes. Be a lifelong student.

3. Accept who you are and work with that, not against it. Not everyone is a parent, friend, or leader in the same way. Don’t try to fit someone else’s ideal of perfect—own who you are.

4. Put on your own oxygen mask first. It’s tempting to be a martyr or to work yourself sick, but it makes no practical sense. Take care of yourself first and foremost so that you have the energy, the clarity, and the fortitude to be there for others.

5. Develop and maintain a solid support system. There is no shame in asking for help. The people in your life are your greatest asset—nourish those relationships, give back to them, and rely on them when you need to. They make you smarter, stronger, and more complete.

Thanks, Sheryl! Stay tuned for more Five Rules installments.

 “Five Rules,” is a series on Rouge18 in which I ask others to share their five rules for life about anything and everything. You can learn a lot about a person by reading which five things govern their actions, no? 

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