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.
Joe Cole · Actor
Every role is a chance to learn a new way to move.
To play a Liverpool boxer fighting for his life in a Thai prison, he learned Muay Thai and took real punches in a yard full of real inmates.
Asked whether he can handle himself after two fighting roles:
With the Thai Boxing I threw myself into it again, and learned a bunch of new moves which I could use in my own training, instead of just doing weights and running. I feel very lucky that I can do that kind of stuff.
Asked which fight scene was hardest:
They were all tough in different ways. The middle one was pretty tough – they were all shot in very long sequences, but we shot that whole one in one go every time. But then the last fight was tough because we shot in a real prison courtyard with 2,700 prisoners, they put a boxing ring in the middle of the yard and put me in with a pro Thai fighter after one day of choreography… so it was very much just about seeing what would happen. None of them were easy. It was pretty close to having a fight – the sparring was real, all the punches and kicks connected, but also you had to do it over and over again, all day, every day, and that last fight scene took us two full days to put together. That’s where you have to be really focused mentally – just get enough sleep and get in there ready to go.
Asked how the training shaped the part:
I became quite strong, and confident in my fighting ability, and that was quite a juxtaposition with my mindset for the role, because Billy ultimately is a little boy in a man’s body in a lot of ways. He has these insecurities and he’s a vulnerable guy, so he uses fighting and his body as a body to protect himself, almost from himself in some ways. I remember him telling me that the worst part about being in prison was his own head, because whenever he had any sort of success or achievement he’d be back to square one because of his own actions, because of his mind. So those two things, the physical and the mental, were an interesting combination.