Day 3: When the Future Feels Unsteady, Lead Within Your Three-Foot World
A Navy SEAL strategy for directing your energy where it actually makes a difference
Coming Up
What staying within your “three-foot world” means in leadership
How focusing on your immediate zone creates safety for your entire team
Four simple practices to anchor your energy where it makes a difference
Have you ever caught yourself refreshing company announcements every hour? Or mentally rehearsing worst-case scenarios? Or trying to predict what’s coming next?
When uncertainty grows, it’s natural to scan the horizon for threats. We want to see what’s coming so we can prepare. But the horizon is exactly where you have the least control.
Today, on Day 3 of the Leading Through Uncertainty Challenge, we’re going to look at how you can reclaim control (and stay calm) by focusing on your “three-foot world.”
Before we jump in, here’s a reminder of where you stand in this challenge:
Day 3: Stay Within Your Three-Foot World (You Are Here)
Day 4: Prepare for the Worst
Day 5: Understand Your Coping Style
What is Your Three-Foot World?
In his book No Hero: The Evolution of a Navy SEAL, Mark Owen describes learning to rock climb during SEAL training.
Hundreds of feet up a sheer rock face, he looked down and froze. His instructor climbed up and told him: “Stay in your three-foot world.”
Owen was confused. The instructor explained: “Focus on what you can affect. You keep looking around, but none of that can help you right now. You’re calculating how far you’ll fall. You’re looking at people below. Stay in your three-foot world.”
In other words, focus on what you can affect right now in this moment and ignore everything else.
You can apply this same concept to your leadership.
In an earlier Managing Stress series, we showed you how to distinguish between your “Circle of Concern” and your “Circle of Influence” as a means of distinguishing between what you can and can’t control.
Today, we’re showing you how to use the three-foot world concept to actually stay focused on the things you can control – and why this makes you a more effective leader.
Why Limiting Your Focus Creates Psychological Safety
When you try – and inevitably fail – to control everything, your team feels your anxiety. They sense the instability, and then they start scanning the horizon too.
But when you anchor in your immediate zone, your steadiness creates psychological safety.
When your team sees you focused on what’s actionable right now – not spiraling about things no one can control – they receive an important message. Someone is managing what can be managed. The immediate space is being handled.
When everything outside feels chaotic, your three-foot world becomes a zone where things still make sense, where actions still matter, and where there’s still purpose and direction, even if it’s just for a little while.
Your team doesn’t need you to fix everything. They need to see that uncertainty doesn’t mean total chaos. That there are still things to do. That their work still matters. Your focused presence gives them that.
Your three-foot world in leadership might look like:
Being fully present in your 1:1 this afternoon (not focusing on the layoff rumors circulating among leadership)
Giving clear, constructive feedback on this week’s deliverable (not worrying about whether your department will exist next quarter)
Responding well to the emails in your inbox right now (not ruminating on the budget cuts you can’t influence)
You can’t eliminate uncertainty, but you can control how you show up in it, and choose to do your best work today regardless of what happens tomorrow.
Focus on Leading Well Today, No Matter What Tomorrow Brings
This doesn’t mean you ignore strategic planning or pretend the big threats aren’t real. Maybe you are worried about losing your job. Maybe AI really could eliminate your department. Maybe your team actually is on the chopping block. Those concerns are valid.
Focusing on your three-foot world in the face of those realities means that you:
Still update your resume and network – but you do it on personal time, not while you’re supposed to be leading your team meeting.
Still think about long-term strategy and prepare for multiple scenarios – but you don’t let that preparation consume every moment of your day.
Acknowledge the uncertainty honestly with your team – but you don’t spiral with them into worst-case scenarios that drain everyone’s energy and focus.
The three-foot world isn’t about denial. It’s about effectiveness. When you spend all day refreshing LinkedIn for layoff announcements or doom-scrolling AI news, you’re not actually preparing for anything. You’re just anxious. And that anxiety leaks into every interaction with your team.
But when you focus on leading well today – giving good feedback, making thoughtful decisions, showing up with presence – you’re building the skills and reputation that will serve you no matter what happens next.
Whether your job stays the same, changes completely, or disappears, your ability to lead effectively in uncertain conditions is one of the most transferable skills you have. Your three-foot world is where you build the competence that carries you through whatever comes next.
Now let’s look at what can pull you out of your three-foot world – and four techniques to help you stay within it during times of uncertainty.
What Pulls You Out of Your Three-Foot World
Even knowing this principle, staying in the current moment can be hard. Here are four common traps that can pull you out of your three-foot world:
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Leadership by 16Personalities to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.