Show, don't say

Every adjective is a claimyou failed to back.

Most people have the competence and spend it on labels. “I'm resilient.” “I'm battle tested.” “I'm a Swiss Army knife.” The fix is always the same — replace the label with the scene — and the test is Kramon's own: does it play as a movie scene?

Name the labelThe other two tools
Say it

I’m a Swiss Army knife.

Show it

At 17 I managed social media, customer retention, finance and HR simultaneously for my family business — a diner struggling through COVID.

  • an age
  • four functions
  • a place

“Suddenly, that’s a movie scene. That’s what you want.”

The fix is always the same shape

Three frames, three stars: the label is cut, something happens once, and it ends on what it changed.

Roll A · Interior · Day
ProductionShow don’t sayTake1

Chalk the adjective you reached for about yourself. The scene is checked against it.

11 words.

Kramon’s three takes

The opening draft and the synonym are ours. Kramon’s three takes are his examples, word for word.

  1. Frame 1 · CutNo star yet
    The scene still says resilient.
  2. Frame 2 · ActionStar earned
    It went, once.
    Detail: first
  3. Frame 3 · The endNo star yet
    No ending yet. What does it change?
Fix this first

The scene still says “resilient”. If the scene works, the word is redundant — delete it.

Cut
  • Not yet: The label itself is gone from the sceneThe scene still says “resilient”. If the scene works, the word is redundant — delete it.
  • Done: Not another label wearing a coat
Action
  • Done: Something happened, once
  • Done: One concrete detail — a number, an age, or something named
The end
  • Not yet: It says what it changedThe bankruptcy is not the point — “as a result I conserve cash” is. End on what you do differently now. Only one of Kramon's three examples does this, and it is the strongest of them.
Your scene · copy it out
Unlocks at 2 stars

Earn 2 of the 3 stars and the scene is ready to paste where the adjective was.

Learn it, not just pass it

Three labels, three scenes.Read what changed between them.

Kramon works these three through on air. Every rewrite does the same four things — it names a place, puts a number in, happens once, and ends on what it changed. Once you can see the pattern you can run it on any adjective you were about to use.

Check your work0 of 6

The reason this works is that a label asks to be believed and a scene does not have to. Nobody argues with a diner in 2020.

Read the pairs
  • The label

    I'm resilient.

    The scene

    My first startup went bankrupt. As a result I conserve cash and manage the most efficient early-stage sales team in biotech.

    Note what it does that the others do not — it ends on what it changed. The bankruptcy is not the point; conserving cash is.Kramon credits this rewrite to his colleague Rachel Conrad.

  • The label

    I'm battle tested.

    The scene

    I worked in Washington on my car company's government relations team during the UAW's targeted effort to unionize plants in Ohio.

    “Okay, what does that mean?” A named city, a named union, a named state. It comes alive because it happened somewhere.

  • The label

    I'm a Swiss Army knife.

    The scene

    At 17 I managed social media, customer retention, finance and HR simultaneously for my family business — a diner struggling through COVID.

    An age, four functions, and a diner. Suddenly that is a movie scene — which is the test.

Also from this episode

Two more.Same conversation.