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.
Ross Edgley · Endurance swimmer
Told it could not be done, he thought of Captain Webb.
A hundred and fifty-seven days at sea, twelve hours a day in the water, a tongue stripped by salt, all the way round the coast of Britain.
Asked what inspired the swim:
One of the motivating factors for this was looking at the history and heritage of British explorers. Not just British explorers, but the eccentric British explorer from Shackleton to my favourite, Captain Webb, the first guy to swim the English Channel. In 1875 they said: “You cannot swim across the English Channel. The water is too cold. The tides are too strong.” But he looked to cross the English Channel in woollen wetsuits and on a diet of brandy and beef broth! And this is the bit I love: swum breaststroke all the way across because, and I quote: “Front crawl was ungentlemanly.” I was like, “Yes!” He did it in less than 22 hours – nothing captured the attention like Captain Webb back in 1875, the way that he did it, the first to do it.
Asked how he got through the dark moments:
The best advice I got was from Ant Middleton (obviously celebrated military personnel) and he said: “Look Ross, I know you're a really positive guy and it's nice swimming with dolphins, but there are going to be moments where you need to switch up your personality to this split personality. You're just going to have to get really feral. I said: “What do you mean get feral?” He goes: “You just need to be: swim, eat, sleep and just repeat. Just caveman, just primitive.” I didn't quite understand it until you get those dark moments where you're stung by the tenth jellyfish of that swim and you're just like: “Oh my God.” That’s when, certainly, Ant taught me to tap into that powerful, primitive mindset, or as he called it: “Get feral.” Having been prepped by Ant for that, it wasn't such a surprise when it arrived.
Asked what he learned about himself:
Yes. I posted this on social media: “In your complete exhaustion you find your most honest version of yourself.” For some people that's a good thing but for others, not so much. I think this revealed why a lot of people will succeed when they go and do marathons or their first 10K, or their first 25K. When those dark clouds inevitably come over your head – as with my tongue falling off, my neck chafing, snot coming out of my nose, really just not the best version of yourself. If you're OK with that, then you can continue. If it's not OK with you and I’m like, not prepared to get stung by jellyfish so much that my face changes shape because my eyes were so swollen; my goggles would no longer fit to my face. If you're not going to do that and be prepared to take it to complete exhaustion, then you probably won't make it.