Fear distorts sense of time: The Oslo airport lesson.
Fear distorts sense of time, and it bends other numbers in the same way. In this story, a flight of about an hour and a half felt like eight hours. So the failure number that appears at night may feel like knowledge, but it isn't.
A wrong airport and a stretched clock.
During spring break 2024, the author flew home from Amsterdam through Oslo, Reykjavik and Boston. However, the gate screen showed a different Oslo airport than he remembered. Budget airlines often sell Sandefjord Airport, Torp, as "Oslo Torp," although it sits in another town. A flight attendant told him his connection was impossible to make.
Then the flight began. It took about an hour and a half, but in his head it lasted eight hours.
How fear distorts sense of time on the ground.
After landing, every second felt like an hour, and his mind ran the worst version of everything. That is why anxiety makes time slow in a moment like this. Yet when he added up the minutes on the train, everything had gone perfectly by the clock. In short, fear distorts sense of time while reality quietly keeps its own pace.
The number that arrives at night.
You may never stand at the wrong gate, but you know this feeling. For example, you read about a business that went under, and a number appears unasked. It says most people like you fail. That gut feeling about business failure feels like knowledge, however, it is the same stretched clock.
Catch how fear distorts sense of time in your own numbers.
Tonight, write down the failure number that comes to mind when you think about your business.
Next to it, write how you feel right now, so you can see the feeling beside the number.
From the book.
You will probably never stand at the wrong gate in Amsterdam, but you have almost certainly lived through something like that flight. You are lying in bed late at night, reading about somebody whose business went under, and a number arrives in your head before you have asked for one, a number that says most people like you fail, that your idea is the kind that fails, and that you would be the one it happens to. It feels like knowledge. It isn't.
I Want to Start a Business but I'm a Coward, chapter 2: Afraid people see different odds
Questions about fear distorts sense of time.
Why does fear distorts sense of time matter for business decisions?
Because the same feeling that stretched a short flight also writes numbers. Your failure estimate can carry that feeling inside it.
Did the author miss his connection in Oslo?
No, he reached the gate just as boarding began. Then the flight was delayed two hours because the staff hadn't arrived.
Is the number in my head about failure real knowledge?
It feels like knowledge, but the chapter says it isn't. It is a number shaped by how you feel.
Read the whole chapter.
This lesson covers one section of chapter 2, “Afraid people see different odds”. The book goes further, with the full evidence, the stories and every exercise.
Lessons in this chapter.
- 01 Fear distorts sense of time: The Oslo airport lesson.
- 02 Should i trust my fear: What the calm stranger missed.
- 03 Fear vs anger risk taking: Why feelings bend numbers.
- 04 Estimate business failure odds: The blind odds test.
- 05 Wisdom of the crowd within: Why averages beat picking.
- 06 Limits of emotion research: What it can't say about you.
- 07 Ask business owners for advice: Fixes for common snags.