Keep your eyes open!
As the discus left the throwers hand, the crowd immediately started to yell. Look out! Duck! The spectators tried everything they could to alert the individual that was obviously not paying attention of what was about to happen.
The discus hit the individual in the head. Everyone rushed over to offer assistances as soon as possible, the ambulance was called, air flight came in. What could have been an avoidable situation turned into a life or death situation fast.
How could this incident been avoided. The simple answer, the spectator should have observed the boundary markers, and safely stayed within them. The other possibility is that the spectator should have been focused on the immediate danger and reacted to it.
I learned both lessons from this incident. First, you should be proactive and take care of yourself, observe your surroundings and make sure you are safe. Once safe, stay alert and keep an eye out for impeding danger. If danger is coming, don’t close your eyes, keep them open and take in as much information as possible, your optical nerve takes in more data than any other sense in our body. If danger is coming, don’t freeze, react. Either get out of the way or attack. In the case of a flying object, I would get out of the way.
Where in your life could you see where keeping your eyes open could of prevented issues both minor and large? What do you think could have happened if you kept your eyes opened?
When I was younger playing little league baseball, we would see it several times a year where a fly ball was hit high into the air and the defending team would cover their heads, they lost the ball in the sun and decided to take precautionary measures. Most often the ball would just land without hitting anyone, a few times it would hit the defender, and thankfully they were prepared by placing their glove over their head. Minor injuries, if any occurred.
In business I see something similar. A company is afraid of the competition or changing environment, so instead of facing the challenges head on, they will ignore them, hoping they will go away. Most of the time they do not go away, the come full force and the company gets ran over. However, for the companies that do take on the challenge head on, they survive. Sure, they may get beaten up, lose market share, but the experience has helped them pivot into a new direction and change their business model. This change helps them flourish in the future.
I encourage you to keep your eyes open, in life and in sports. Yes the object, the person, the competition coming at you can be scary, but by keeping your eyes opened, you can not only be proactive you can be reactive if necessary.