Mother Nature knows to go all on the trunk of a tree for quite a while until the tree is ready for more shoots…   Today, I wanna talk to you about something I call ‘Trimming the Shoots…’   A.K.A -  *Doing Less, Better*   I’ve put this together from two pieces of content…   1. An introduction I gave to my high-level students in my OfferLab program #SneakPeek.    2. A recording from my OfferMind event.    First, I’m gonna explain what it really means to trim the shoots and then, I want to give you some MORE context...    Because while this game is a ton of fun, it can also be EXTREMELY challenging.  TRIMMING THE SHOOTS - HOW TO INCREASE SALES. I'm the oldest of six kids growing up in Littleton, Colorado...  (Can you spot me?)   And, my dad made me the yard manager...   Meaning I answered for all blades of grass and every weed. It wasn't a massive yard, but it wasn't small, either…   And I was where the buck stopped.    One year, we planted two apple trees up on the side of the yard and those trees looked pretty sickly...     They were as tall as I was, so they weren't that big.   The first season went by, and they'd just taken root, so we didn’t expect much fruit.   They were brand new trees,  so they weren’t gonna make a lot of apples.   Well, the next season, they were supposed to produce some fruit, but still, *NOTHING*   And my incredible mother, (she made me!) ?... wanted these apples (which weren’t that awesome to eat, but crazy good in pies)...   ...but there wasn’t enough of them for even one pie.    So I looked at these trees and thought, "How come they’re not producing any fruit?"    ...and I realized there were tons of shoots branching off the main trunks.    There were tons of these mini-shoots all over the tree.    There had to have been at least 100 of these (no joke) tiny shoots…    There were shoots EVERYWHERE!  And as I looked at those shoots, I realized, "Oh, my gosh. Wait a second. That’s why the tree is NOT producing fruit. It's got too many startups."   TIME TO CUT BACK!   So as we started transitioning into fall, I took off every single one of those shoots. I broke them off and pruned the tree back, so it was only the main trunk with a couple of shoots.    Anyway, winter goes by…   Every once in a while, I glance at the trees, wondering how they're doing and I go shake off the snow from them.    It snows like crazy in Colorado; people get snowed in, and I miss that. Frankly, it's one thing I don't like about Boise.    I miss the snow, real snow; lots of feet of snow.    But then Spring came along, and it started to warm up… (I love spring. Spring's one of my favorite times ever. I love those transitions between all seasons.) So I start going back out to the trees, and I break off the little buds that were trying to grow additional shoots.   And what happened was crazy…    By the end of that season, there were so many apples that it was breaking the tree. There were so many apples that the trees could not handle the amount of fruit.    It was shocking to me how many apples were sitting on those trees.    The weight of the apples was weighing down all the branches and almost every single branch was nearly snapping.    I was like, "Holy crap. Why did this happen?"     After I learned why... I pruned EVERYTHING in the yard.    Maybe I got a little prune-happy, but I started cutting back and chopping everything.    And the next year after that we had this incredible yard.   (OK… maybe a slight exaggeration ?)   But there's a lesson here….    BUSINESS GOAL SETTING   It may sound obvious, but I'm brought it up at the beginning of OfferLab to show you that you gotta prune the shoots!    I’ve coached nearly 30,000 people.    And when I teach the principles of what I do, it stimulates the mind...    And the mind goes, "Oh, my gosh! I could do…   *THIS*   *THIS*   *THIS*   *THIS*   *THIS*    ...and all these shoots start appearing ALL OVER the place!    And what's the problem with that?    None of the shoot