From Netflix To Moses: The Power Of Making Great Decisions

One choice can tilt a career, a company, even a legacy. We dig into how leaders decide under pressure and why a simple framework—clarify, consult, consider, create, criticize—can turn uncertain moments into wise action. From Netflix’s pivot and Blockbuster’s miss to Decca passing on the Beatles, we connect real business stories to timeless biblical wisdom, showing how decisions reflect values, shape culture, and determine outcomes.

We begin by naming the decision clearly: purpose, objectives, and constraints. That clarity anchors everything that follows. Then we talk about counsel—what Proverbs calls the safety of many advisors—and why leaders often avoid it due to ego, insecurity, or overconfidence. We walk through grounding decisions in Scripture, seeking the Holy Spirit’s guidance, and gathering experienced voices who will tell us the hard truth. The goal is not consensus; the goal is wisdom.

From there we evaluate options against goals, motives, core values, and mission, considering second-order effects and the rare times when waiting is the wisest move. We move into planning with conviction, translating decisions into owners, timelines, and resources, and we draw the line between a bad decision and a good decision executed poorly. Finally, we build feedback loops, learn from misses, and remember that experience—often earned through failure—powers better choices next time. If you lead a team, run a business, or carry a calling, this conversation will help you decide with courage and clarity, guided by God’s Word and the Holy Spirit. Subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review to tell us which of the Five Cs you’ll practice this week.

Chapters

• 0:17 Welcome And Global Shoutouts
• 2:58 The Weight Of Daily Decisions
• 4:08 Cautionary Tales From Business History
• 6:31 Decisions Define A Life
• 9:08 The Five Cs: Clarify
• 12:21 Moses And Jethro’s Wisdom
• 16:32 Consult: Counsel, Ego, And Fear
• 19:57 Biblical Guidance And The Holy Spirit
• 24:29 Consider: Filters And Consequences
• 27:32 Create: Commit To A Clear Plan
• 30:12 Criticize: Feedback And Resilience

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:17

Thanks, Kelly, and welcome everyone to this week's Christian Business Concepts Podcast. I'm your host, Harold Milby, and I'm so excited to have you join in today and excited about what we're going to cover today. But I just want to thank you, thank all of you for being a part of CBC and the CBC Network. And uh so we're we're really happy about that. We're really uh, you know, approaching four years now that that we have been producing podcasts, and uh we just continue to see a growth in the in the countries and the cities that are downloading uh this podcast. And and I just want to say thank you today, just give a big shout out to the country of Peru, uh, who has joined uh the CBC family by the downloads that they're having there in that country. And in our own United States, I also want to thank Rochester Hills, Michigan. Uh, brand new to uh several downloads that have come from that city, and we're excited about that. And, you know, our desire here at CBC is to help people find true godly success by using godly business principles. You know, we believe that there is a reason and a purpose for you as a Christian business leader or Christian business owner, and uh, we believe that God has a desire to use you in a big way. And uh so we're excited about that. And what we try to do here every week uh when we come to you with a new with a new episode is to try to encourage you, enlighten you, and empower you uh through what you hear. And so we're very, very excited about it and glad that you could be with us today. Now, you can help us in a great way, if you would, help spread the word for Christian business concepts. You know, you can share this podcast with, you know, four or five other people. We're on almost all of the major uh podcast uh platforms. Uh, you can find us on Pandora, you can find us on iHeartRadio, Apple, Spotify, and and about a dozen others. So there's there's lots of ways that you can get our podcast, even on YouTube. And so we are really excited about that and excited to have you guys with us and being a part. So you can be a big part of helping us to grow. You can also take a link that you're listening uh to the podcast on. You can take that link and post that link uh in uh uh, you know, a post on your Facebook or on your LinkedIn, and that will also help us to grow the CBC community, and we greatly appreciate that so very much. Did you know that research has shown that the average person makes 70 conscious decisions per day? That's over 24,000 conscious decisions a year. Now, I'm not talking about the subconscious decisions that you that you make every day, but the actual conscience, uh conscious decisions that you make. Up to 24,000 of these types of decisions that you're going to make in a year. These decisions may not all be as important as others, but the fact remains we are all faced with decisions on a daily basis. You know, some people understand the importance of making really good decisions, and some people don't. You know, the one difference between really successful business people and unsuccessful business people is characterized by the decisions that they make and how well they make those decisions. The difference between those two, totally, you know, either total defeat or complete victory can be often traced back to even one decision. You know, I'm sure many of you have watched movies on Netflix. You know, they were founded back in 1998. Next Flix, uh Netflix began as a DVD rental company, if you remember that, uh, where you would order your DVDs on the internet and they would be sent right to your door, and then you would return the DVDs after you finish watching them. And at one point they had uh over uh in 2005, they had over 3.6 million subscribers. And uh in 2007, uh we see where the internet speeds begin to really rise, and and and you saw the rise of YouTube uh and uh the rise what what YouTube could do uh because of the faster internet uh speeds. And so in 2007, uh the owner decided to, his name was Reed Hastings, he decided to begin to move away from the DVD rental and begin a net uh uh a uh streaming, a live streaming or a video streaming uh system and company. And so, you know, the rest is history. Now we know Netflix, and and there are millions of people who have Netflix uh prescriptions. But what many people don't know is that in 2000, in the year 2000, Reed and his team had a meeting with the CEO of Blockbuster. Now, in 2000, Blockbuster at the time was the leader in home entertainment. And they offered, Netflix offered to sell the company, the Netflix company, to them at that time for$50 million. Well, the response was pretty much immediate. No. You know, by 2019, let's move forward now, they they decided not to do it. But in 2019, Blockbuster had only one store left. So the CEO never even took the time to think, to discover, or to take the offer seriously. And so he made a very rash decision and a huge mistake on his part. So there are many business people who make poor decisions, and examples are plentiful of companies that are no longer in business because, you know, they had poor decision-making skills, and they chose to make, or they chose to make no decision at all. In uh 1 Samuel chapter 15, Saul made the decision after he had been told, but he made the decision to not completely destroy the Amalekites, as the Lord had directed them to do. And that one decision cost him the throne. That one decision. Decisions are important to everyone, but especially business owners. This is why we need to make sure we understand how to make decisions and how to take the time to make good decisions. Here's another example. On New Year's Day in 1962, a man by the name of Brian Epstein was a manager of a new and little-known musical group, and he took them and auditioned with Decca Records in their studios in West Hampstead in North London. Epstein's group performed about 15 songs uh in front of Dick Rowe, and Dick Rowe was a senior uh executive for Decca Records, and he was the person that was in charge of finding new talent, you know, for the for the record company. And after the audition, Mr. Rowe decided to pass on signing the group. And he he actually even made the remark to Mr. Epstein he said, guitar groups are on the way out, Mr. Epstein. Well, the Beatles went on to be one of the most successful music groups in history. And yet Decker Records had the opportunity to sign them and record them, and because he didn't take the time to make a good quality decision, he took a pass and again passed on the Beatles, who went on to be one of the most successful music groups in history. As a business leader and owner or manager, you're the one that's tasked with making decisions. And your success, the business success, your department success depends upon you making good ones. Here's a wisdom seed for you. Your life consists in the sum total of the decisions that you have made. That's right. When you look at your life today, it really is the sum total of the decisions that you've made throughout your life. If you make good decisions, you have a you you have a pretty good life. I'm not saying you don't have ups and downs, but you have a pretty good life. If you make poor decisions, bad decisions, rash decisions, then you typically do not have a a really great life. So keep that in mind. Your life consists in the sum total of the decisions that you've made. So I want to discuss with you today the five Cs of effective def uh effective decision making. The five C's of effective decision making. All right, the first is clarify. So the first thing that you've got to do is you've got to clarify the the decision. In other words, it it's really important uh to the process. It's because you've got to clarify the purpose of the decision, you need to clarify the objectives of the decision, you need to clarify the specifications of the decision. And well, how's this done? Well, it it's done through gathering information and data. So in this first step, let's clarify. This is where you're getting all the data, all the information, and you're clarifying, well, what's the purpose of the decision that's got to be made? What is the objective? What's what's kind of the details or specifications? And uh if you don't do this properly, if you don't identify the purpose, the objectives, the specifications correctly, you're almost certainly doomed to making the wrong decision. You know, in Exodus chapter 18, you know, is the story of Moses. And Moses is a is faced with a real problem, but he had a great father-in-law. He was the only man at that time that was leading the children of Israel. They've come out of Egypt, and the weight of all the millions of people that he had led out of Egypt was upon his shoulders. And he couldn't keep doing it. He needed help. So I'll just kind of read. I've got my Bible opened and turned to that, and it says in chapter 18 of Exodus, verse 13, it says, And it came to pass on the morrow that Moses sat to judge the people, and the people stood by Moses from the morning unto the evening. And when Moses' father-in-law saw all that he did to the people, he said, What is this thing that thou doest to the people? So it's not just affecting Moses, it's affecting the people. You can't you can't be an effective leader if you're the only person leading. He says, Why sittest thou thyself alone, and all the people stand by thee from morning unto evening? And Moses said unto the father-in-law, because the people come unto me to inquire of God. When they have a matter, they come unto me. I judge between one and another, and I do make them know the statutes of God and his laws. And Moses' father-in-law said unto him, The thing that thou doest is not good. So here they are in the process of bringing clarity. They're trying to understand, they're trying to see what needs to happen. And so it all started with this clarity. This is not a good thing. He noticed it wasn't good for the people. He noticed it wasn't good for uh for Moses. And so as we continue to read on, in uh uh and he says that uh let me go back and finish that verse. It says, Thou wilt surely wear away, but thou, both thou and this people that is with thee, for this thing is too heavy for thee. Thou art not able to perform it thyself alone. Hearken thou unto my voice, and I'll give thee counsel, and God shall be with ye. Be thou for the people to Godward, that thou mayest bring the causes unto God. So he's giving him some direction here. Verse 20, and thou shalt teach them ordinances and laws, and shall show them the way wherein they must walk, and the work that they must do. So what he's doing is he's saying, Okay, we've got to clarify your position here. If you're the leader, then you've got to lead. And uh so he goes on, and uh he says in verse 21, moreover, thou shalt provide out of all the people able men such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness, and place such over them to be rulers now watch this, to be rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of ten. And let them judge the people at all seasons, and it shall be that every great matter they shall bring into thee, but every small matter they shall judge, so shall it be easier for thyself, and they shall bear the burden with thee. If thou shalt do this thing, and God command thee so, then thou shalt be able to endure, and all this people shall also go to their place in peace. So here we have this great example in God's word of a decision that had to be made in having that clarification of what the problem was. Moses would have never he would have never been able to continue to lead the people because it would have worn out. And so they had to do something about it. So that's all a part of clarify. So let's go to the next C. The next C is consult. And this is a very, very important part of making good, godly decisions. So in Proverbs chapter 11, verse 14, it says, Where there is no counsel, the people fall. But in the multitude of counselors, there is safety in the multitude of counselors. Peter Drucker, who's a great author and a great speaker, he's the author of a lot of books on business leadership. And he says in his book, The Essential Drucker, he said, executives who make effective decisions know that one does not start with facts, one starts with opinions. So he's making that distinction of effective executives. They want to gather information, they want to consult with other people. But there are so many people who are afraid to consult with others, they're afraid to get other opinions in this decision-making process. What is it, why why do they do that? Well, there's a lot of reasons. You know, one could be ego. You know, they've got such a high opinion of themselves, they there's just no way they could think anybody else could be smarter than them. Anybody else could help them. And so they have this huge ego, and it just keeps them from getting the information that they really need. Another reason that happens is because of lack of confidence. Some people have such a lack of confidence they don't want to go to somebody else because then it just per it just shows everybody else the lack of confidence they have. So I can't go ask for help because then they'll know I need help. So that's just a lack of confidence. But there's also the opposite of that, which some people don't seek opinions, they don't seek consultation because they're overconfident. They think, well, I don't need anybody else, I can figure this out. I can make a decision. You know, we read some examples, or I talked about some examples uh earlier when we talked about the Beatles and we and we talked about a couple of others. Those are examples of somebody who just decided, hey, I'm not gonna talk to anybody, I'm just gonna make a decision here. Bad decision. Uh another uh another reason that uh some people don't uh consult others is because of fear. They're afraid that they're gonna tell them maybe something they don't want to hear. Maybe they're gonna tell them the truth, maybe they already know what the truth is, but they don't want to hear anybody else verbalize it. You know, there's lots of reasons why. Lots and lots of reasons why. In 1 Kings 12 and 13, and I encourage you to go read this, uh, the history here of King Rehoboam. He was actually one of the sons of Solomon. And we know Solomon was the smartest man. Uh he was the most wise man, according to the word of God, ever, ever, uh that was ever born. But in 1 Kings 12 and 13, we read the history of King Rehoboam, and he was faced with a growing revolt among the people when he took over. Uh and so he had the opportunity to take counsel from the most experienced, knowledgeable people, the older men that he had under his command and that were involved in the kingdom. But what he did was instead of doing that, he made the decision to actually go to his friends, the younger ones that had no information, they didn't have any experience, they hadn't had time to gain any knowledge, and so he consulted with his friends. And the decision was so disastrous and resulted in such a long history in his life, it created bad decisions after bad decisions after bad decisions in his life. You know, here's a wisdom seed. Bad decisions breed bad decisions. The more decisions that you make that are ineffective decisions and turn out to be bad decisions, the easier it is to continue to make bad decisions. Because normally you make a bad decision because you don't go through the process to begin with, and all that does is perpetuate itself if you don't stop and recognize that you've got to do something to change the status quo. You've got to become knowledgeable on how to effectively make good decisions. Okay. So let's go on. As believers, we need to consult, first of all, we need to consult God's word. There's no question about it. You know, as believers, Christian business owners, we must consult his word first. The Bible says in Psalms 119 and 105, it says, Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. God's word gives direction. God's word will help us to uh understand, it gives wisdom, and if we make a decision that's contrary to the word of God, it's a bad decision. I mean, if you ever see God's word say the opposite of the decision that you plan on making, stop what you're doing right now. Confer with a good, godly friend that you have, but don't make that decision until you've discussed it. Don't ever make a decision that's contrary to God's word. I can't say that enough. Now, we also need to make sure we consult the Holy Spirit. You know, in John 16, 13, it says, Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, has come, he will guide you into all truth. For he shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak, and he will show you things to come. So we need to consult the Holy Spirit. He's there to guide us. It says he's going to guide us into all truth. So we need to be praying. We need to be seeking God, and we need to seek the Holy Spirit, seek his word, but we need to hear from the Holy Ghost and find out, Lord, what are you saying about this situation? I need to make a good decision. I mean, making decisions without direction from the Lord, it's kind of like playing Russian roulette. I mean, I'm being honest. In the natural, you're going to have limited information. There's going to be lots of guesswork. There's no way for you to know the future. We as human beings, we have limited knowledge, we have limited understanding. Understanding without him. This is the reason he sent the Holy Spirit. It says it here in John 16. He sent him to guide us. He's the comforter, the Bible says. Comes from a Greek word. The root is paraclete, and it means one who walks beside. So the Lord wants to walk beside us. He wants to help us. And that means He wants to be able to guide us even through our business decisions. You know, I remember when I pastored one time, a woman came to me and said, Pastor, I need you to pray. We've been trying to sell our house for about three months. We can't sell it. And I'd like for you to pray and just help us. And so, you know, I prayed for them, uh, and the Lord spoke to me immediately and said, Tell them to raise the price. And so I said, Look, I'm going to give you some advice that I'm not sure that you're going to understand. But while I was praying for you, I felt like the Lord said to tell you to raise your price. And they said, Well, the real estate agent's been telling us to lower the price. I said, Don't lower the price. Raise the price. So anyway, they came back a couple of weeks later. They said, Pastor, you know, we uh we told the real estate agent that. He laughed at us at first. We told him it was important. We told him to raise the price, we raised the price, and two days after he raised the price, we sold the house. So, you know, I'm just saying that you have to follow the Holy Spirit. And sometimes when the Holy Spirit directs you to do something, it's totally opposite of what human reasoning will tell you to do. You've got to spend time in prayer for that guidance. In James 1 and 5, it says, if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be given unto him. So we've got to consult with the Holy Spirit. You've got to consult with some of your teammates. You've got to consult with some of your managers. You may have to consult with people outside of your business or outside of your department, but you've got to do some consulting. But remember, make sure that it lines up with God's Word. Make sure that you're consulting the Holy Spirit as well. So we've covered, we've covered the first two C's, right? Clarify and consult. The next one is consider. So now what you've got to do is consider all of the possibilities and the alternatives from the data that you've collected and from the opinions that you've received. So now you've got, excuse me, now you have to consider all those possibilities and alternatives. And you got to filter those possibilities and alternatives through a few things. You got to fill first filter them through your goals. Is this decision that you're going to make is one of the alternatives that you're going to consider for making this decision? Is it going to benefit your goals? The other filter that you've got to filter this through is your motivation. What's your motives? I mean, one of the things you have to consider is you could have motives that aren't so pure. I mean, that happens to all of us sometime from time to time. The other thing is, what about your core values? You've got to filter that through your core values. If you're going to make a decision, it can't conflict with your core values or you'll struggle with it. What about the purpose? What about your company's purpose? You know, not just your purpose, but your company's purpose. So you've got to consider all of those possibilities and alternatives as you run them through these filters. You know, you've also got to consider the consequences of the possible solutions that you're considering. So you've got to look at the consequences of the decisions that you're going to make. Now, you can also consider not making the decision. Sometimes the best decision to make is to not make a decision. That sometimes is the better way to go. Now, this may be the right decision, but the one thing that you have to realize, and I'll just share this in a wisdom seed, making no decision may be the right decision, but making no decision is not part of the decision-making process. So in the beginning of the process, you could just say, well, I'm just not going to make a decision. No, you've got to go through the process. You've got to go through the process, and once you get to this point, once you get to the consider portion, then you can consider not making a decision. You know, one of history's worst decisions was that of the French Emperor, uh Emperor Napoleon. Everybody knows a lot about Napoleon. He invaded Russia in 1812. At the start of that year, Napoleon walked into Europe like a conquering hero. He was at the height of his power. He invaded Russia with about 658,000 men, so over a half a million men. At that time, it was the biggest army ever assembled. But by year's end, Napoleon had endured a catastrophic defeat, lost most of his men, and began the downward slide that would culminate two years later in his exile. He came out of Russia with only 35,000 Frenchmen still under his command, with the remainder either dead. There were over 400,000 that died, or deserted, or switched sides. Well, what happened? Well, he made a very bad decision to stay and winter in Russia and then continue the battle. Big mistake. Big, big mistake. So again, one decision can affect all those lives, right? So let's look at this what we've covered. So clarify, consider, consult, and now we go to create. So now you've got to create a plan. And this is the stage where you declare your plan. But let me warn you, when you declare your plan to your managers and to other people, you declare it with confidence. Declare it with confidence. You know, I'll never forget I watched a movie with Matthew McConaughey, and the name of the movie was called U-572. And it was World War II. It was about a submarine, and Matthew McConaughey was not the captain at the time, but he was like the XO. Okay? And so what happened was he got passed over. His uh captain didn't recommend him for his own command of his own submarine because he didn't feel like he could make the tough decisions. And in one scene, when his captain was killed and he was being attacked, and they had to submerge, the the Germans were after him in the movie, they asked him what to do, and he looked at all the men and said, If you think I have the answers, I have no idea. I don't know what to do. And so his chief petty officer got him aside and said, Let me tell you something. Don't you ever tell the men that you don't know what to do. You're the captain. You know what to do. And if you don't know what to do, they know all is lost. And so I remember that movie. It really stuck out in my head. So this is the part, when you do declare your plan, you got to declare it with confidence that you know what you're doing. Even if you don't feel like, hey, look, I had three dishes. I picked one option. I'm not sure if this is the right option, but when you move forward with it, you move forward with it with everything you got. If you look back at the example of Moses and what was going on there, you know, people had to be chosen to lead in different sized groups. They had to be trained, they had to be taught, they had to be taught how to deal with people. That was part of the plan. He had to declare that. Say, hey, here's what we're going to do. See, you've got to create action. You've got to create some action. When you create a plan in your decision, it's going to create work. It's going to create an assignment for somebody. It may be part of it, maybe for you, but there's going to be a lot of times when you're going to create action for somebody else. You're going to have a planned work assignment for somebody. It's going to create responsibility for somebody. So you have to be all in or all out. You can't ride the fence on this. So your commitment is vital to the success of the outcome of your choice. So you've got to be completely committed. You don't always have to be the one to carry out the plan, but you do need to make sure it is carried out. So here's a wisdom seed for you. A poorly executed plan does not mean a bad decision was made. Keep that in mind. You may have made a good decision, but if it's poorly executed, it'll look like a bad decision. Don't get confused with that. So we clarify, we consider, we consult, we create, and then the last thing we criticize. So you've got to criticize, you've got to get feedback. And feedback needs to be built into the plan of your decision. Sometimes you're going to have to make some minor adjustments. You're going to have to make some changes to the plan. Make sure you know what's specifically supposed to be reported back to you and what kind of data that you need to receive. The decision that you may make may fail. That doesn't make you a failure. Every time that you make a bad decision, learn from it. Learn from it. Learn something while you're there. In Proverbs chapter 24, verse 16 in the Living Bible, it says, the godly may trip seven times, but they will get up again. But one disaster is enough to overthrow the wicked. So in other words, if you fall down, get back up again. If you make a mistake, get back up again. Practice the five C's in making effective and efficient decisions. You know, let me tell you the story of a young man who just started working for a big company, and he's brand new, he's young, he wanted to learn, and so he was able to get by the secretary, and he went into the CEO's office who had his head buried in a bunch of paperwork. And so he kind of cleared his throat, and the CEO looked up and he said, Yes, son, how can I help you? He said, Sir, I'm just trying to find out what you did to be so successful. What is it that makes you so successful? And the man looks at him in a stern voice, he says, good decisions. And so he puts his head back down, assuming that the young man's going to walk away, but he's undeterred. So he looks at him and he says, Okay, but how did you make such good decisions? The man looks up at him again, he says, Experience. Puts his head back down in his paperwork. And so lastly, the young man says, Well, how did you get all the good experience? And the man looked up at him, he looked a little bewildered for a moment, and then he looked him right in the eye and he says, Bad decisions. So in when we're talking about this, we're saying that there's going to be times when you make bad decisions. That's okay. That's what becomes experience to help you make good decisions. Lord, I pray for the listening, uh, those listening right now to this podcast. Maybe they're in the valley of decision right now. And Lord, I pray that you give them guidance. And I declare, Lord, that they uh, Lord, will follow your direction. Lord, I declare that you'll help them make the right decision in Jesus' name. Well, thanks for listening to this week's broadcast. We look forward to having you back on the broadcast again soon.

SPEAKER_00: 31:25

Thank you for tuning in to this week's Christian Business Common Simpsons Podcast. Go to Christian Business Common Simpsons.com for more information and resources. Be sure to check another podcast and we'll help you take your business and your personality your whole level of success.