Help

Big day for Understandably.com. And, who doesn't like Tom Hanks? Also, 2,660 other things worth your time.

Tom Hanks had a movie last year called Greyhound. There’s a quick scene in it that stuck with me. It’s about crafting an important message.

Hanks plays the captain of a U.S. Navy destroyer. It’s 1942, and he’s escorting 37 ships across the Atlantic Ocean to England.

They’re attacked. They take casualties. They’re in trouble. Hanks has a dilemma:

• Does he break radio silence to alert the British Admiralty?

• Or, is the danger too great that German submarines will intercept the signal, and realize how vulnerable he is?

He talks it over with his executive officer (XO). The scene basically goes like this:

Hanks: Do I risk sending a short message?

XO: What would the message say?

Hanks pauses, then says: ‘Help needed urgently.’

The XO realizes it can be shorter: ’Help needed.’ That means ‘urgently.’

Hanks edits, too: ‘Needed’ isn’t needed. ‘Help.’ That’s all the Admiralty needs to hear.

(I’ll embed the scene way at the bottom of this newsletter.)

Anyway, I like that scene. Sometimes, you just have to c…