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Good morning. This is Laura.

Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.

Today's tip is to know the odds. Having a good sense of how likely something is can help you make better choices and might also be reassuring if you tend to fixate, on unlikely events.

A few months ago, I flew to Japan for spring break with my 16-year-old son.

We had a great time there, but of course we had to get there.

Flying always makes me nervous.

In particular, I am nervous about flights getting cancelled or being

horribly delayed. But the good news is that I had been tracking this particular flight for a while,

and I saw that it almost always left on time. There were only a few times when it had been delayed,

and canceling was extremely unlikely.

This was good to know.

Now, you can always get unlucky.

Longtime listeners might recall my attempts to get to Edinburgh a few years ago, when United

canceled two days' worth of flights in a row.

But when you see the on-time record for a flight,

and it is good,

you can feel better about your upcoming travel.

Knowing the odds can be helpful in all sorts of circumstances.

For instance, I know a lot of my listeners save and invest for retirement.

I find it helpful to know that in the U.S., market corrections of 10% are quite common.

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