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.
Danny Care · Rugby scrum half
Make the mistake, shout next job, and make the tackle.
A scrum half touches the ball more than anyone on the pitch, so he gets more wrong. Danny Care has a two-word answer for every error.
Asked how he comes back from a mistake in front of a crowd:
It's something we train at 'Quins. We call it the Next Job, so someone makes a mistake, you'll literally say to yourself or people start shouting “Next job,” and you don't have time in rugby, or I'd imagine in a lot of walks of life, to dwell on decisions that you've made. It's in the past, you've got to get on and either fix the problem or work your arse off to try and get the ball back or make the next tackle. As soon as you start thinking about it too much, you go into a bit of a downward spiral. You see the best players in the world in football, rugby, cricket, whatever, they manage to set aside their last decision – if it's a bad one – and move on to the next job straight away.
Asked how he prepares for split-second decisions under pressure:
Yes, I think you've obviously got to practice to see what works. Eddie Jones, the England coach says to me a lot: “Back your first instinct, it's normally the right one.” So your first decision is normally the right one and I've found that with myself. As soon as you start thinking about it too much, you've talked yourself out of the right decision. The higher up you go at the level, obviously the less time you have to make these decisions.
Asked what happens when his instinct is wrong:
That comes with the territory, especially as a scrum half. You touch the ball more than anyone else does on the pitch so you're going to make mistakes – you just hope you can limit the amount of them, and hopefully the risk/reward of trying something and it coming off helps. You don't want to be trying ridiculous stuff the whole time but if you think something's on – definitely at 'Quins and England – you've got the licence to back yourself. Even if it's the wrong decision, your teammates will react and hopefully make it into the right decision.