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.
Rob Bunce · Sailing skipper
Think clearly when the heart rate is high.
Rob Bunce skippers a 12-metre catamaran that flies on carbon foils at over 40mph. Every boat in the fleet is identical, so the racing comes down to the crew.
Asked why sailors now spend so much time in the gym:
Fitness has taken over yacht sailing – there's no more parties every night at regattas now! Pretty much all of us are in the gym every day. We do a lot of work where we have a high heart rate and then we've got to do some thinking man's exercises – problem solving under fatigue because at the end of the day you don't have time to sit down, relax, have a cup of tea and decide what your next manoeuvre is. It happens in seconds so the clearer you can think under stress and fatigue, the better you'll get on.
Asked how he lifts the crew after a bad result:
It’s pretty difficult but if you have a bad result, you just need to be able to shake it off – I think the key to it in our mind now is just to have a bit of banter on the boat in between races. If it goes a bit wrong you have a 30-second chat about why it went wrong and that's that, you just drop the race there and someone will crack a joke. I think you've got to do that, and the next race is the next race because we do eight, ten races a day and there's maybe a five minute gap in between, so there's not time to dwell. It's quite easy to get into a negative circle, so you do the best you can to stay positive – you want to try and get on a roll in a series, that's how it works.
Asked how the crew copes when things get hectic:
We talk about the front three [of five] as being the workhorse on the boat – so me, the floater and the trimmer – we know each other’s jobs inside out, so as soon as one guy’s got a bit of a problem we just jump straight in and help him. Communication at 30 knots is so crucial that the better friends you are, and the better you get along off the boat, the easier it is on the boat.