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.
Jamie Ramsay · Ultra-runner, adventurer
On day one, you only need to run forty kilometres.
Twelve years in a City job he hated, then one morning waking up at his desk. Jamie Ramsay flew to Canada and ran to Argentina, a day at a time.
Asked what finally pushed him out of the office:
One night I got absolutely shitfaced and woke up in the office, because I thought it was a good idea to go straight to the office, rather than go home. That morning I was like: “Oh, this is the wrong path.” I sat at my desk looking at people, thinking: “You never see your family. You're not married. You're unhealthy, and you're an alcoholic. I don't want to be any of you people, and if I do this, it’s another 30 years of my life.” That's where I changed.
Asked why setting off with almost no plan worked:
If you plan, and if you over analyse something, the biggest potential risk with that is that you're just going to freak yourself out. On day one, you do not need to be able to run 17,000 kilometres. On day one, you need to be able to run 40 kilometres, so that's all you have to focus on. Then, on day two, it’s: “Can I run 40 kilometres the day after I ran 40 kilometres, and have I got my kit right? How do I adapt, change, and refine to make the next day easier?”
Asked about the people who said it could not be done:
Then I realised that everyone was saying, “you can’t” because they look at the person you are on Day One, and they're putting on you the challenges of Day 250. Well, that's 250 days to learn, and develop, and hone your skills. That person, yes, no way I would have been able to run over the Andes on Day One, but after running through 12 different countries, and over other mountain ranges, and over different deserts, actually, by the time I got to the Atacama, I was excited, because it was a new challenge – I’d done everything else.