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.
Kilian Jornet · Mountain runner, mountaineer
Fewer things between him and the mountain, and nowhere to hide.
Everest twice in a week without oxygen, and an avalanche that took his feet from under him at 7,800 metres. Kilian Jornet on testing his limits at home and travelling light.
Asked what getting into the mountains does for the mind:
Practising a sport, it's good for the mindset. It relaxes you and it makes you think about problems from another perspective. Going to the mountains is like going into a big mirror and you cannot hide from yourself. When we live in society, we are always talking and talking. We look far, we look near – we have so many inputs and we don't find the time. In processing all that, we are always in a hurry and we don't find the time to look at who we are, what are the things that are important for us, that have some meaning or that make us happy. I think that going to the mountains puts that into perspective, to see that we are really not important at all.
Asked how he finds his limits safely:
When I was in high school or in university, I trained without eating. I said, “OK, I am going to stop eating and I kept training normally, morning and afternoon.’ I saw how the body was changing through the days until, on the fifth day, I just passed out. I was close to home, so I was thinking if I pass out, somebody will see me in the next hour, so it wasn't any risk. [...] It's very interesting because then you know that, when you are in the mountains, OK it's not because I haven’t eaten an energy gel that I will die. It's really to create this picture of yourself when you are in safety and then you know how far you can push when you are in races or in other situations.
Asked why he climbs with so little kit:
What motivates me is to see if we can do something like racing to the summit or doing a record fast. Climbing with oxygen or with thick ropes or with a lot of people helping you, it's not a helicopter but it's not yourself alone, either. If I have an idea to climb a summit or to do this endurance thing, it's to see if I can do so. [...] So, the less gear you have, I think, the closer we are to it being ourselves and the mountain. The fewer things there are between us.