The simple takeaway here is that you should never allow a bad situation to progress to its worst possible outcome because of inaction. In competition for example, your goal should be to stop an opponent at the very beginning of their attack and then take the initiative away from them.

Another way to think of it is that it’s just far easier to deal with any situation at its onset than at its later stages. If I put it in the framework of Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, it would be like someone had a grip that leads to a choke with a few more steps. Breaking that grip initially is easier and safer than trying to escape the choke that’s on the way.

One of my teammates at Evolve Academy taught me an intuitive way to think of this whole concept . She broke it down into traffic lights. The green, yellow, and red lights, you know. So at green, everything’s fine. At yellow, it’s time to act, and then at red, it’s too late.