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.
David Millar · Former Tour de France rider
Risk second place for a real shot at first.
David Millar raced the Tour de France on broken ribs and a fever. He most admires the riders who would rather lose everything than sit tight and protect a podium place.
Asked what makes three weeks of the Tour so hard:
You should be arriving at your top fitness; if you're there you can do it, physically and psychologically. So normally the worst is if you crash and you’re injured or you get sick. Then it just turns into purgatory because it’s pure survival and that's just horrific. For Tour de France it's one of the few races where you will go until you can’t. The Tour de France has this sort of importance, this sort of old-school value that finishing is as important as winning, so that can make for hellish days.
Asked whether a rider has to give up his position in a moment:
Yes, but it’s personality. Alberto Contador is kind of the best at that. You’ve got these amazing stats where he's won seven Grand Tours and never finished on the podium of one. So second or third don’t really mean anything to him, which is terrifying if you’ve got him in second or third place behind you, because most guys who are in second or third in the Grand Tour, they’ll protect that position. But for us spectators we need there to be riders who are willing to put it all on the line and lose second place in hope of perhaps getting first. But also be satisfied if they end up finishing 11th because they tried, and there’s less and less of that these days.
Asked whether a breakaway is a game of chess:
Yes, it is pretty much. It just comes down to you having to be able to beat the guy who’s feeling good, know what their strong points are and know what their weak points are and be doing that with about five or six guys, sometimes ten guys; and knowing how to play them and what to do, anticipate their moves and choose your tactic. Often you have to choose your tactic and stand by it because if you start to overthink it and start to play around, you tend to lose.