Law 13 · Build Before You Are Ready
The man who paid for his own risk.
Tom Hardy put $2.5 million into Taboo knowing half the room would hate it. On why permission never arrives, and why he stopped waiting for it.
Tom Hardy · Actor
Law 18 · Become Dangerous, Then Govern It
The challenges on the mat are bigger than on set.
The director has a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. He says the mat is harder than any film set, because nobody can help you there.
Guy Ritchie · Director, jiu-jitsu black belt
Law 13 · Build Before You Are Ready
Doing things rather than dreaming about them.
DJ, actor, kickboxer, and now director. Elba on a father who died at seventy-two and the urgency that followed.
Idris Elba · Actor
The first cup is the quiet one.
A washed Colombian for the hour before the day gets its hands on you.
Red apple, panela, a long clean finish. Roasted in the UK to order and posted through the letterbox, so it is on the counter when you come down. Grind it while the kettle runs. Drink it before the phone.
Inside every bag there is a card. One of the twenty-two laws, printed on thick stock, yours to keep or pass on. The coffee is the point. The card is the gift.
250 g · Huila, Colombia · Washed · Whole bean or ground
More stories
All stories →One story a week.
Someone who earned their ground, read slowly, in your inbox on a Sunday. The coffee ships to the list first.
About the author
Shane Quigley
The people I interviewed
Actors, athletes, adventurers and founders. Tap a face to read their story.
A code · not motivation
The 22 Laws
of Growth & Freedom
Twenty-two patterns, found in the lives of people who had to earn their ground. Read them slowly. Come back to one.
A man does not rise in one heroic moment. He rises by returning to the work after comfort, failure, resentment, fear, and distraction have all invited him to stop.
One slow, painful brick at a time.
In life, everything meaningful is earned.
Rise Strong. Nothing’s Given.
A new story every week.
RSNG Coffee · No. 01
The Foundation
Washed Colombian. Red apple, panela, a long clean finish.
The first coffee in the range. A clean washed lot from Huila, roasted light to medium for clarity rather than weight, so it is as good black at six in the morning as it is with milk at ten. Roasted in the UK the week it ships, posted flat through the letterbox.
- Origin
- Huila, Colombia
- Process
- Washed
- Roast
- Light-medium
- Weight
- 250g
- Roasted
- UK · to order
- Inside
- One law card
The first roast is on its way.
Inside every bag
A card in every bag
Thick uncoated card, one colour, one of the twenty-two laws on the front and the whole of it on the back. It comes stapled to the back of the bag and tears off clean. Keep it on the fridge. Give it to someone who needs it.
Stop wishing it was. Start building.
rsng.com/laws/1
Later · the tool
Pocket will hold you
to the code.
It reaches you only when it needs you.
An agent on your phone that carries the 22 Laws as its operating code and runs one practice a day in the law's voice. It is not ready. The coffee, the laws and the proof are. Leave your email and you will hear when it is.
No blue. No streaks you did not earn. The accent appears only when something needs you.
Today
Become Hard To Threaten
You named your salary yesterday. If it stopped on Friday, what is the first thing you would do on Monday?
Practice
Do the work.
Short, plain exercises. Each one serves a law. Most take minutes a day. Pick one and start tonight.
Aldo Kane · Former Royal Marines commando
A commando’s skills, spent keeping other people alive.
A former Royal Marines commando who keeps television crews alive inside erupting volcanoes, and once rowed 4,500 miles to Venezuela.
Asked whether any of his commando training still applies:
Yes. The Royal Marines teach you Commando Spirit, part of which is Cheerfulness In Adversity. I was in a volcano in Democratic Republic of Congo for three weeks, breathing in so much dust and glass, basically, and all my fingers were infected. It was just a horrible place to live and it was erupting while we were inside it. And you just have to be kind of happy with the situation. And there’s the buddy system. You have to look after your buddy first and then your team, and then yourself – if everyone’s doing that it means you’re getting looked after as well. You can’t watch your own back. I’ll know what my calorie intake is or, how much water I need to drink, but they are not used to it. Before you know it they’ll go down with heatstroke or whatever.
Asked what fifty days of rowing does to the mind:
It makes you incredibly mindful because there is no point. There is no future. There is no past. There’s just the seconds of suffering that you're going through. Every bone – your arse – everything is shredded. You’re literally just grimacing through it. You maybe only sleep for four hours a day, but they’re through the night. The rest of the time you’re just baking in your cabin. It’s a classic example of By Endurance We Conquer.
Asked how he looks at challenges now:
It very much makes you think that you can pretty much do anything as long as you are dogmatic about it and you just get your head down. It’s actually proof that just getting on with something, taking that first step is always the hardest and actually after that it’s just momentum, and you just keep going, keep going.