Trees Don’t Grow to the Moon
Knowing when to stop, shift, or start again—on your terms
One of the things I’ve come to appreciate is making time to mentor and teach. As I’ve written before, giving back through my career and sharing the lessons I’ve learned has been enjoyable. During my annual appearance at the Pipeline Entrepreneurship sessions, I had the opportunity to retool one of my modules—specifically, the one on understanding your business and focusing on your customer.
The pivot of my class involved a group of young CEOs and startup founders who were tasked with communicating their company’s vision, business plan, and customer acquisition strategy to my co-moderator and me. As a test, I had them write their plan with a pen on a large white piece of paper in under three minutes before everyone. This led to a robust debate about improving their focus, clarity & communication.
Breaking down companies and helping CEOs and founders focus on clarity, simplicity, and conveyance (how you talk about your business) is clarifying, energizing, and, honestly, a lot of fun. I love watching the women and men in that room take on the challenge. And naturally, I can’t help but drop a few of what my friend Jon Sinclair calls “Elo-isms”—lines like “Get out of the jar,” “You can’t fall off the floor,” and “Stop digging the hole.”
But in this most recent session, one line came out of me naturally—and when I said it, the room just stopped. You could feel the pause. It came at a moment when I began challenging a young CEO about their business's growth prospects. Because, frankly, they had already acquired a significant number of customers; however, sales were stalling, and I was concerned they were already reaching the ceiling. I then offered this quote:
“Trees don’t grow to the moon.”
The original version of the phrase is a German proverb: “Trees don’t grow to the sky.” Somewhere along the way, I picked up the “moon” variation, and it stuck. I can’t tell you exactly when it entered my lexicon—nor do I have no idea when I might have read a German proverb—but it’s taken up permanent residence in my head rent-free and my leadership toolkit.
What about that saying that seems to work so often in business? First, it speaks to something we rarely want to acknowledge: even good things—profitable things-have a natural end.
That’s especially hard for founders. You’ve built the product. It’s growing. It’s made money. But now, it’s not. Growth has plateaued. The market is shifting. Energy is waning. And still, you want to believe. You keep pushing. You keep hoping.
That’s when I ask the question:
“Have you ever thought about why trees don’t grow to the moon?”
No matter who I ask it to, there is at first, there’s confusion. Then I follow with:
“Okay—how about this: Why are redwoods so much taller than the trees in your neighborhood?”
That’s when the conversation shifts. People stop. They start thinking. We talk about roots, soil, sunlight, DNA, resources- everything. The natural elements that determine the height of a tree. Again, I’m not a dendrologist (someone who studies trees), but you don't need to be one to make the point.
That metaphor clicks, and a light bulb goes off.
During the turnaround at OWN, I leaned on this concept more than once—especially when trying to help our teams see that a show, even a hit show, might have reached its limit.
That’s a hard thing to accept. Especially when you finally have a show working, and it’s bringing in solid numbers, no one wants to let go. But sometimes, the costs start outpacing the growth. And you realize—the tree isn’t growing anymore.
Case in point: We were in a greenlight meeting about three years into OWN’s turnaround. A handful of shows were doing well, but we were struggling to have any breakthrough shows other than the staples from Oprah herself.
Five of us in my all-glass, street-level office in West Hollywood reviewed ratings for a show that just ended its second season. The show did okay; it was 2–3% above our target. In other words, it’s “fine.” (What a terrible word to utter in a creative world.) Given where we had been in the summer of 2011, getting anywhere close to some rating goals was a success. Therefore, the group's assumption was obvious: greenlight season three.
But something didn’t feel right.
Sure, it was technically performing, but the topline had plateaued. And while the team was laser-focused on the goal—hitting the rating number—I was focused on growth. If we couldn’t grow beyond the goal, we couldn’t keep our little momentum and turn the network around.
As the marketing team walked through the season three campaign, I stopped them.
“I don’t see it,” I said.
Collectively, the team pushed back—“What? The creative is great.”
“No, meaning I don’t see us greenlighting.”
That’s when the chorus started: scheduling, research, and everyone reminding me of our metrics and goals. I let them talk. Then came the question:
“Why, Elo?”
“Trees don’t grow to the moon,” I said.
Silence. Followed by some very odd and dumbfounded looks from the group.
“If our job is to bet on where ratings growth is coming from, and this show is up 2% but costs are up double that, we’re not growing. We’re losing.”
The meeting ended. Debates followed. Agents called. Managers called. But I held firm.
A few weeks later, our head of acquisitions presented a scrappy, low-cost show idea. We had the funds to pursue it since we didn’t renew that other show. My last check, many years later, was that the acquisition of that show had a long and successful run.
While no one got me a chainsaw for Christmas, inside the building, “chainsaws and hatchets” became affectionate metaphors for my meetings.
That’s the hardest thing in business: making the call to stop something still working… just not growing. You have to end something you created with no assurance you’ll ever match its success. But as a leader, you must ask: What are you doing with the tree?
And if I’m honest, this phrase—“Trees don’t grow to the moon”—has become a metaphor for more than work. It’s personal now. I’ve felt it in my own career.
In my early years, I moved fast. I was chasing treetops—rising quickly, climbing higher, growing on career momentum. 10 market (city) moves before I landed in Los Angeles in 2011.
While at OWN, a few things shifted for me. After we made the turn (the network's financial turnaround), I could see the ceiling; I knew we had grown as much as possible. Many factors were happening all at once, but the combination of our distribution declines, due to the surge of the streamers coming, I knew. However I didn’t feel the need to ‘cut the tree.’ Even when it became less professionally challenging, I stayed longer, knowing we had achieved what we could. Why? Well, that’s an upcoming Substack.
But the last five years in my garden of trees? It’s been unlike anything before. So much change, so much work, so much growth. Personally, emotionally, and spiritually, my roots have gone deeper than ever.
“No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell.” C. Jung
That quote is a more appropriate way to describe personal growth. It hits the proverbial nail on the head: I confronted the dark places and faced things I avoided for decades, and that work—the invisible, underground kind—has allowed me to grow again, stretch, and branch out.
Maybe trees don’t grow to the moon. But that's okay; the biggest question you may need to face is “Where does your tree stop growing: in business and life?”
Maybe they can grow more than we think—Maybe you transplant them to deeper soil once you give them space. Allow them to flourish. But all of that requires work, hard work, depending on what your ‘tree’ is.
I know today that there are no magic beans (sorry, Jack and the Beanstalk fans), no shortcuts, and no fast tracks. There is no question that some trees are precisely where they are meant to be, and some can even grow more. The more rooted you are, the more you can grow.
For many of us, your personal tree(s) don’t need to reach the moon; all you need to do is continue to reach up purposefully. Or what you find out, maybe it’s just time to leave that tree where it is. Just plant, nurture, and grow another in Business and life.
Great insight into your journey⭐️