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.
Keanu Reeves · Actor
He used to ride fast when he was angry. Not any more.
No script at his first big audition, a ruptured spleen from a motorbike crash, fruit thrown at his band at Glastonbury. Keanu Reeves on learning on the job, and the escapes that shape a man.
Asked about his worst crash:
I suffered a ruptured spleen from that. Usually it's just slide-outs although I've broken my arm, broken a few teeth, lost a lot of skin and got road rash on my knees. I've tried to slow down and become a little safer over the years, though. [...] Whenever I would get angry or upset about something I would just take the bike out and go as fast as I could but that's not always the best mood to be in if you're riding at 150km or faster. I don't do that anymore.
Asked what the motorbikes give him:
One of my favorites is a Norton and I’ve a 1973 Mk2A Commando which I’ve had for about three decades – we have shared a huge number of hours and miles together. Such great memories and amazing times. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you do; in life you’ve got to have these distractions, these escapes – they are what truly make us the people we are. It’s not work that ever does that.
Asked whether he remembers his first big audition:
Sure. First off there was no script to work from. I was just given a few pages and was told to go from there. There were about 10 different Bill and Teds and we were all interacting with each other to see how best we could play as a pair. It was weird. [...] I was relatively new to acting and only had a handful of movie credits to my name before Excellent Adventure. I hadn’t done that kind of audition before and I had to learn on the job; I had to try to attack it from the angle I felt would work best.