Whack-A-Mole Is Not A Management Strategy

Big results are built in the small spaces of your day. We pull back the curtain on how purposeful, faith-led habits shape real business momentum—and how drifting into reactive work slowly steals your best hours. From Scripture to systems, this conversation is a practical guide for leaders who want focus without burnout.

We start by grounding success in daily choices, drawing on timeless wisdom: Aristotle’s “excellence is a habit,” the disciplined prayer life of Daniel, and New Testament insights on self-control. Then we connect that foundation to the workplace. Discipline is more than grit—it’s the structure that brings security, confidence, and action. You’ll hear how consistent routines tame chaos, why pain points often reveal where discipline is missing, and how to swap whack-a-mole management for a steady, purposeful cadence.

Next, we map out a repeatable day. Personal growth comes first: quality time in God’s Word, focused prayer, a chapter of leadership learning, and 20–30 minutes of exercise to sharpen energy and resilience. On the administrative side, we share simple email rules—no inbox first thing, limited check-ins, quick replies, phone over loops—and two folders (Action and Waiting For) to keep your head clear. For production, we emphasize a single to-do system, honest prioritization of two to three active projects, tackling your hardest task first, and scheduling short thinking time. We also highlight managing by wandering around—listening on the floor to uncover waste, surface ideas, and build respect.

We wrap with leadership rhythm: meet weekly with a lean span of control to remove blockers, align goals, and keep momentum. The takeaway is direct and hopeful—your future follows what you do every day. Choose habits that honor God, focus your mind, and energize your team, and watch the compounding effect of consistency. If this helped, share the show with a friend, subscribe for more practical episodes, and leave a review to tell us which habit you’ll start tomorrow.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Global Shoutouts
• 2:47 Core Theme: Success In Daily Habits
• 5:36 Scripture And Wisdom On Habits
• 10:55 Discipline As The Engine Of Excellence
• 16:40 Pain Points And Self-Management
• 20:01 Personal Growth Habits That Stick
• 25:09 Admin Routines And Email Mastery
• 29:24 Production Systems And Priorities

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome to the Christian business concepts with your host, Harold Milby. Christian Business Concepts is dedicated to guiding companies and business companies and being company effective, efficient, and successful. Here's your host, Harold Milby.

SPEAKER_01: 0:17

Thanks, Kelly, and welcome everyone again to this week's Christian Business Concepts Podcast. I'm your host, Harold Milby. I'm so glad that you decided to download this podcast today. So excited to have you listening and all of those of you that listen every week so appreciative. You know, our desire here, as I've said so many times before, is to help you find true godly success by applying biblical principles to business. You know, there's so many principles in the Word of God that that is really business related. And uh so that's what we try to do at Christian Business Concepts. Uh so I'm so glad that you're here, uh, so appreciative. And uh just wanted to give a big shout out this week to um Parl, West Cape, and South Africa. Uh where have you been all my life? All of a sudden, you guys have come on the scene, a lot of downloads, and uh, we are so appreciative of those of you there in South Africa, especially there in Parl. So thank you so much again for being a part and all of the uh all of you uh that listen each week around the world, literally over 22 countries uh and uh all kinds of cities around the world. I it just it's humbling every time I look at those stats. And uh so I appreciate it so very much and appreciate you. And I'd like for you to help us to grow the Christian Business Concepts Podcast by sharing this podcast with four or five other people and be sure to take the the actual link to the podcast and put it on your Facebook page, you know, put it put it as a uh uh you know as a post on your on your Facebook and on your LinkedIn pages that will help us to continue to grow Christian business concepts. So so thankful that you're out there, so thankful for what you're doing. And more importantly, I'm believing that God is going to bless your business, bless uh the work that you do, bless your career, and bless your personal life. Uh, I believe that that's God's plan. I believe as Christian business leaders, Christian business owners, it's so critical for us to get this right. And uh, we have so much opportunity in front of us. And so let's make the best of that. So again, thank you so much for being a part of Christian Business Concepts. Well, let's get into today's topic. Today we're going to talk about the fact that your success will be found in your daily habits. Your success will be found in your daily habits. I believe that you or anyone else, if you took the time and you spent one day shadowing somebody, maybe somebody you don't even know, and you shadowed them all day. And by the end of that day, I believe that you would recognize and know if that person is going to be successful in life based upon what his habits were every day. I believe that a person's daily habits will determine where they're going to go in life. You know, I used to always tell my kids, I'd say, look, you know, you're going to become who you hang around. But I'm going to take it one step further and also include the fact that your daily habits will determine your level of success. What you do on a daily basis. What are those daily habits? You know, Webster defines a habit as a settled tendency or usual manner of behavior, an acquired mode of behavior that has become nearly or completely involuntary. So that's what we're talking about today. You know, what kind of habits do you have? Uh, you know, what what things are you doing on a daily basis? Uh, Rich uh Devos, the founder of Amway, he said this. He said, sometimes success is disguised as hard work. And he goes on to say, each person's destiny is not a matter of chance, it's a matter of choice. It's determined by what we say, what we do, and who we trust. So I I think to get that understanding today, to get that understanding of, you know, the importance of having a daily routine, a daily routine of habits that you incorporate in into your daily life, and that that routine, those habits, should be designed around the purpose that God's put in your life for you and your business or you and the department that you manage. But that routine needs to be there, and we're going to talk about some of the specifics, but I also want to quote Aristotle. Um he said that we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act, but a habit. That's such a great quote. You know, I think that as we think about that and we think about what do we do repeatedly every day? You know, what is it that we do? You know, I one of the people that has been a part of my life in the in in years gone by is a preacher-teacher by the name of Mike Murdoch. And uh some of you may know Mike, some of you may not like Mike, some of you may like Mike. I I don't know. It's too each their own. But um, Mike gives 11 facts about your habits. And I just I I want to kind of go over those because I think they're worth sharing. Uh so number one, habit is a gift from God. And you know, in Luke chapter 4, verse 16, it says, And he came to Nazareth where he had been brought up, and as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up for to read. So this was a habit that Jesus had. He had a habit that he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and he stood up to read. That's what it says. As his custom was. And understand that habits, they're they're from God. It gives us the ability to focus, laser focus in on the things and the tasks that we need to do on a regular basis to take us to the place that God wants us to go. Take us to that purpose, take us to that destiny. And whether you understand it or not, whether you receive it or not, whether or not you're preparing for it, you have a destiny. And God wants us to do everything that we can on a daily basis to help us get there. Number two, uncommon people do daily what common people only do occasionally. Boy, how powerful is that. You know, I think about Daniel. And, you know, Daniel prayed three times a day. There was nobody praying three times a day then. That was a habit with him. He prayed three times a day. That's what he did every day. He prayed three times a day. So uncommon people do daily what common people only do occasionally. Number three, habits are stronger than desires. Habits are stronger than desires. Let that sink in. Habits are stronger than desires. You may want to do something, but it doesn't mean you're gonna do it. Habits are actually the the, you know, if you take the desire and then you create a habit centered around that desire, now you got something, right? Uh the next is the purpose of discipline is to birth a habit. The purpose of discipline is to birth a habit. Number five, everything you are doing today is becoming a habit. I think what do they say? If you do something every day for 21 to 30 days, it becomes a habit. So that's what you've got to see what you're doing right now and make those changes if you need to. So that you've got a routine and you have habits throughout the day that you're disciplined and doing that are helping you to get to that place where you feel like you're supposed to be. The the success of your company, the purpose that God's put in your life for you and your company. You know, you've you've got to begin to uh understand and see and look critically at your life and what you're doing. Number six, your habits are creating your future. Whether they be problems or pleasures, your habits are creating your future. You want to change what your future is going to be? Change your daily routine, change your daily habits. Uh number seven, you can break a habit. So if you have bad habits and you want to break them, rest assured, you can. You can break a habit, whatever that may be. You know, I'm not here to judge you. I'm not here to pass any kind of uh of judgmental attitude uh towards you at all. Because we've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. The word says that. So I'm not here to say that. All I'm saying is if you have something in your life that's a habit and you don't like it, change it. Because you can do it. God will give you the strength to do it. Number eight, you can only break a strong habit when there is a strong reason or benefit to do so. So you're only going to break a habit if you see that that habit, you know, if there's a strong reason, there's a payoff at the end if you break that habit. Then you'll do something about it. Number nine, what you consider to be a bad habit, another may not. Number ten, the habits of those you love may sometimes be in total opposition to your own habits. It's not uncommon. It doesn't mean that their habits are wrong and yours are right, or yours are wrong and theirs is right. You're two different people. You know, uh, it's it's always that way. A lot of times in marriages where, you know, one of the spouses or maybe both of them feel like you can never agree, disagree with them. It's offensive or it's hurtful or they take it personally. You don't always have to agree with people. There's nothing that says that even in the word, that you have to agree with how somebody thinks or feels. You know, you're your own person. So you're gonna have your own habits and your own daily routine. That's what you got to focus on. And number 11, your habits will determine the kinds of friends that you develop. If you have a habit of going to the gym every morning at 6 o'clock in the morning and working out for 45 minutes, you're probably gonna develop some friends that you meet at the gym. You know, if you spend uh a lot of time at your church, if that's a habit, if you go every Sunday morning, guess what? A lot of your friends are gonna be church people. Not uncommon. Because those habits are gonna help determine the kinds of friends that you want to develop. If you have good habits, you'll have good friends. You got bad habits, you're gonna be around people that you really probably don't want to be around. So those are the those are the 11, you know, 11 facts about your habits from Mike Murdoch. So this is the time right now where you got to ask yourself: do my daily tasks and habits reflect the success that I want to have in my life? If not, you got to change it. You know, I think the big problem with business leaders today is that they spend more time reacting and not enough time planning and developing their daily routine. I I call it the whack-a-mole style of management. You know the whack-a-mole arcade game you used to see and your kids used to play, and it had these little moles that would pop up out of a hole and they had a big soft mallet that they would hit that mole before it would go back down in the hole. And so these little moles were popping up in all these holes, and then they had to turn around and try to move the mallet and hit that mole before it got back down into the hole, and that's how they got their points. And there's a lot of people in management who practice that. I used to work for a guy, he did a lot of that. There's a lot of whack-a-mole management. You know, we we bounced around from one thing to another. If something popped up, you know, then that's that's that's what you know he would focus on. And and and I'm not saying that that doesn't happen from time to time, but it shouldn't be a normal course of business. You know, we bounce around like a pinball slamming into one situation after another that pops up and hope we put points on the board. And at the end of the day, we're frustrated because we didn't get everything done that we were hoping to get done. You know, we always start the day off with good intentions, but we really don't have a developed plan to make sure that we get there. We don't have a developed plan to make sure that we we uh get accomplished those things that we try to get accomplished that day. You know, so I think it's important to understand that we've got to be serious about the daily task and routines and habits that we have in order for us to reach that level of success that we feel like God has put in front of us. You know, now one of the most common characteristics that I've noticed, and we're gonna focus a little bit about this, but one of those common uh characteristics that I've noticed in the books that I've read, uh the tapes that I've listened to, the interviews that I've listened to, that are great and successful leaders, they they all talk about having discipline. Discipline. Um sports at all, you're probably going to be familiar with Vince Lombardi, a great coach. Um he's quoted as saying one time that mental toughness is many things and rather difficult to explain. Its qualities are sacrifice and self-denial. Also, most importantly, it is combined with a perfectly disciplined will that refuses to give in. It's a state of mind. You could call it character in action. What a great quote. What a great quote. You know, if if you think about record-breaking athletes and how they become so successful, it's because of discipline. It's in discipline in their daily routine. They don't skip practice or conditioning because they just don't feel like working out today. Discipline is doing the right things even when you don't feel like doing them. You know what's 1 Corinthians 9 27 says? It says, But I keep my body and I bring it into subjection, lest that by any means when I have preached to others I myself should be a castaway. What is he talking? He's talking about self-discipline here. You know, Romans chapter 7, verse 18 and through 22, it says, For I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwells no good thing. For to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now, if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but the sin that dwells in me. I find in a law that when I do good, evil is present. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man. So he again, Paul's talking about discipline. He's talking about how hard it is sometimes, because your flesh wants to do one thing, even though in your mind you know this is the way you really should do it. It it's all about discipline. Our life, our lives, there's so many things about discipline in our lives that we need to understand. But as a business owner, you have got to really be tuned into discipline so that you can do the task and develop those habits and those daily routines that are going to bring success. You know, discipline brings a sense of security. Man, when you when you've got that discipline and you're doing the right thing, man, and you're just putting one foot down in front of the other and you've got things planned out and you're getting things done, there's a sense of security there. You know, it's like with a kid, you know, what you when your children, when you discipline your children, we always think, oh, I know they feel bad, they hate me, they don't like me. But let me tell you something. When a child is young and you discipline that child, that actually brings security to them. They know that you're watching out for them. You know, so discipline brings a sense of security. Discipline brings confidence. You know, when you've got things laid out and you're working in that direction and you've got these habits and these routines, man, you're you're just moving. I mean, man, you got things happening, and there's a confidence there. Discipline brings focus. Because you're laser focused now, because your routine is focused on the success or the purpose that God's put in you. So you're focused on that. And when you're focused on it, then that discipline brings action. So you're not just thinking about it, you're not just looking at it, but you're doing it. You've got action now. Discipline brings a positive attitude. You know, that's another thing. If you read anything about leaders, whether they be Christian leaders, whether they be business leaders, what have you, you're going to find out that one of the best characters or one of the greatest characteristics that they all have in common is a positive attitude. You know, that I mean, I could talk about that for hours. You know, there's so many uh Christian business owners that have such poor attitudes. I don't even want to be around them. I mean, for me, I don't hang around people that have negative attitudes. I just, I don't want to be around it. I can't stand it. It's a downer. It just takes a lot of energy out of you to be around that person, you know, and you just you just don't need to be around negative people. And discipline helps bring positive attitude. Discipline brings respect from other people because they see that you've got a goal and you're moving towards that goal and everything that you're doing, and you're discipline, you're you're disciplined to do those things to get you to that end result. And people respect that. You know, discipline brings fulfillment. When you get these things done, you know, you feel good about it. You feel good about it. That's why it's so frustrating when you practice that whack-a-mole management style. You know, you get home and you think, God, I didn't get everything done. But let me tell you something, when you're focused and you've got these daily routines really working in your life, there's a sense of fulfillment. Discipline brings better time management. You're gonna manage your time better when you're disciplined. Discipline brings motivation. You're motivated, man. You're gonna get some stuff going. And I think that's important. But again, it's focus, it's it's discipline. You you've got to have discipline in your life so that you do these daily tasks and daily routines. Here's a wisdom seed for you. Pain points in your life are an indication of a lack of discipline in that part of your life. If you're experiencing some pain points in your life, then those pain points in that particular area of your life, it just shows you you have a lack of discipline in that part of your life. You need to discipline up in that part of your life, and you'll see those pain points go away. So let's look at some of the habits that you should consider having in your daily routine. Now, these habits that I'm going to share with you are from my experience. It's from experience of other leaders that I've read about and what they do. But a lot of these things I know work and are things that are important. So let's look at that. And I've kind of broken them down into about three different categories. So the first one is personal growth. So every day you need to have some things incorporated into your daily routine that involve your personal growth. So the first and foremost is you need to spend time in God's Word every day. Now, some people like doing this in the morning. Other people do it in the evening. I like to get into God's Word in the evening because I like to go to sleep thinking about His Word. But some people like to do it in the morning. They like to start their day that way. Either one is okay, but you want to spend some time in God's Word every day. Now focus on quality, not quantity. You know, some people, well, you need to be in the Word of God an hour every day. Well, who says that? Who you know, who developed that limit? Who developed that as the standard? You know, to me, it's about the quality of time that you spend in his word. Be sure that you take some of the time that you're using as you're studying God's Word or reading God's Word, be sure to take some time to meditate on what you're reading. Don't just read it. Don't let them just become words on a piece of paper. Begin to meditate upon what that scripture is saying. If you struggle with the King James, get a good Bible that you feel, a new international, amplified Bible, whatever it may be that helps you. That's good for especially when you study. But find something that speaks to you. And maybe it's the new international version, whatever. But get in, uh get a good Bible and keep it with you. Keep it in your office. Have one in your office, have one in your car, however you want to do it. But take the opportunity to spend time in God's Word every day. Next thing, spend time in focused prayer. Now, when I say focused, I mean not praying in generalities. Don't paint with a broad brush. Now the same applies here. Focus on quality and not quantity. But when you pray and spend time with the Lord, praying to God, talk specifically to him. Talk like you would to a friend, because he is your friend. You know, talk to him just like you and I are talking. But spend time in prayer with him. Be focused in your prayer. Go to him. Talk about the things that you're struggling with. Talk to him about the things that you're having a hard time with. Talk to him about the things that you need, whether it be in your business or your personal life. But spend some time in prayer. And again, like I said, focus on quality, not quantity. Next thing you ought to do on a daily basis, read a leadership book. Read a chapter of a leadership book. Listen to a podcast. Review a business journal article that it involves your industry. But you need to do that every day. You need to have that personal growth. And so, you know, get some books. You know, again, I'm I'm working on the website to be able to add a list of resources, books and things like that. And I'm going to be sure to do that. I'll probably even uh, you know, uh do do some uh blogs on there about some books that I've read and kind of share with you what I came across, you know, got got from those books and how they could be a blessing and a benefit to you. Uh but uh in the meantime, there's lots of books out there that you can read, and I'd encourage you to do that. You know, if you're struggling, for example, in delegating things, you're just you're just not doing a good job, then find a book about techniques on becoming a good delegator. Read that book. You want to grow as a person. Uh the next thing is uh get in 20 to 30 minutes of good exercise every day. Folks, this is important. It's important for your physical well-being, but it's also good for your mental well-being. Physical exercise actually creates endorphins that help give you energy and help you to deal with stressful situations. It's important. There's many times that I come home and I am tired. I'm tired mentally, I'm tired physically. But I'll push myself to exercise, and when I get done, I feel a sense of accomplishment, but I actually feel physically better. And so I just want to encourage you to do that. You know, keep in mind that 1 Timothy it says, for bodily exercise profiteth little, but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come. So he doesn't say that physical exercise is not profitable. He just says it's not as profitable as godliness. So I think it's important that we see and recognize that we need to have that. I remember when I had that epiphany, you know, it was like, okay, you really need to exercise. You want to be around for your kids and your grandkids. All right, let's go to that next uh compartment, if you will, administration. Review your emails. This is a big deal. I would never review my emails or try not to review my emails early in the morning. It just sets a bad precedent. You want to be creative and you want to do some other things before you get into your emails. I mean, emails have become both a blessing and a curse. And let me just make some suggestions to keep you from becoming a slave to your emails, okay? Don't like I just said, don't look at your emails first thing in the morning. They just become distracting. Try not to look at your emails more than three times a day. That's about all you want to do. All emails that you can answer immediately in less than five minutes, do it. Take care of it. Don't get into a long email loop. If you see an email is going back and forth more than two or three times, just pick up the phone and deal with it. There's no sense in wasting your lot of time and other people's times with a bunch of emails going back and forth. I've been in my company where I've seen emails go back and forth as many as 20 times. It's ridiculous. It's not productive. Uh, try to keep your inbox empty. Let me make this suggestion. Create two folders in your email inbox. Create one that says action and create one that says waiting for. Now on mine, I've got double A in front of both of those so they're at the top of that list because it's alphabetical. And so if it's actionable and it's only actionable by you, then you put it in the action folder. If you're waiting on some other information from somebody else, then you put it on the waiting for or waiting on folder. You put it in that folder. Try to keep your inbox folder empty. Uh remember to always reply all if there's other people included. That's important. The other thing about that is only put one person in the two field. The person you're expecting to respond with an answer is the person that goes in the two field. Anybody else will go in the CC field just for their information. So review the next thing that you want to do, I'm leaving the email now, but we're just going in to continue in your administration. Review any mail and delegate anything pressing to somebody else if at all possible. Then do the same thing with your voicemail. Delegate any callbacks that you can to somebody else. You only take and call back the people that you know you are the only person that can call them back. Uh the next compartment, production. Uh start with some sort of to-do list. You need to have two additional folders or categories here, like you do in your email. You should have one that, you know, that says action and one that says waiting for. Any and anything that you think of, I mean anything that you think that you need to do, put it down. If you've got a paper copy or if you're doing a digital copy, however you want to do it, just put it down. Write it all down. Uh I suggest putting it in your list if you have even completed it. Maybe you didn't put it on the list, but you got something done. Go ahead and put it on the list and then check it off. Number one, it gives you a sense of accomplishment. Number two, it gets you in the habit of putting it in there. But put everything that you can on your to-do list. Now, I work from an app. It's on all my electronic devices. Uh, I can easily add anything on the fly. And the name of that app is called Things. And that's the one that I use. You can set it up so that it works with your voice commands on your phone, on your smart devices, where if you've got Siri or whatever, you know, you can just say things, add this and tell it what it is, and it'll automatically put it in there for you. You don't even have to open the app. Uh, but there's also Todoist, that's another one that's T-O-D-O-I-S-T, Todoist, and Microsoft To-Do. Those are great apps. I just happen to like uh Things. I just happen to like that app. Uh then once you've got that, you've got to prioritize that the to-do list every day. You know, things change and you've got to change with it. And while I'm on this subject, keep in mind that research uh, you know, has been done on a lot of effective business owners, and they suggest that a person can only effectively manage two to three projects at a time. You know, one of the things that happens in our executive staff meeting of our company is that uh the the executive Phoebe goes around the uh the conference room and asks everybody what are the top three things that we're currently working on? What are those three projects? He wants to know what they are, if we get stuck on them, whatever. But again, you really can only be effective managing three of those, two to three. Uh the next thing is tackle what you think is your most difficult daily or weekly task first. Try to get it done, get it out of your way, because it'll open up your mind, it'll free up your thinking. Uh those are the things we typically will put off, and then they don't get done, and they were the most important things that we needed to get done. So do those things first. Uh the next thing that you need to do daily, learn one thing new about your business every day, good or bad, but try to learn something good and new about your business. Next, spend some time just thinking about your business, just thinking about your goals and how you're going to get there. It doesn't take a lot of time. Keep a notebook, just write some things down that come to mind. Uh, and then you can turn them into something in more detail. But just kind of take some time and do that. You really, this next thing is practice managing your business by wandering around. There's actually a book by this title, uh, by this title, Managing by Wandering Around. Great book. Spend time talking to your employees. Uh the owners of our company are really big about that. When they come to our uh into our location, they'll go out into the factory, they spend a lot of time talking to employees, looking and seeing what's going on. They challenge those people to think outside the box so that they're not always saying, well, this is the way we've always done it. You know, that's not what you want to do. You know, you you want to do things a little bit differently than that, and you want to peel that back. You want to continue to ask, dig deep, and find out what your employees are thinking. They may have some of the best ideas you could ever have just by getting out there and looking and seeing what they're doing. You may find some things that just aren't going right. I've been I've been through the factory when we used to have another factory in Portland, Oregon. I was out in that factory, I watched something happen and it was the most ridiculous thing I'd ever seen. And I asked the guy, so why are you doing it that way? Well, this is the way we've always done it. You know, and look how look how nice it is. And it was the fact that he was hand cutting on a bandsaw a specific part. And all we had to do is make the part exactly that way. We could do it on a CNC machine. He was doing it by hand, and it was taking him 45 minutes for every part that he made. And I'm like, this is ridiculous. And so when I brought the the department manager over and I said, Hey, did you look at this? He goes, Yeah. And I told him what I just said, and he goes, Oh, you know, we never really thought about that. I'm glad you came. Well, it was a little frustrating because that's his job. He should have thought of that. But at the same time, it does take you, the owner of the company, going out there and seeing what they're doing to come up with better ways to do it. So that's that's what I'm saying. Practice managing your business by wandering around. Next thing, meet with your direct reports once a week. You know, in most business circles, the ideal number of direct reports is seven people, plus or minus two. So, you know, any anywhere from five to nine. Uh that's really about the most that you can deal with. If you think about it, if you spend one hour a week, you know, with your your direct reports, if you spend one hour a week with them, that's seven to nine hours out of your work week. That is a significant chunk of your work week. So you really don't want to have more than you know, seven plus or minus two. You you really want to focus on that. So keep that in mind. But you want to meet with them on a regular basis.

SPEAKER_00: 33:03

Thank you for tuning in to this week.