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.
Sam Rossiter · Free runner, personal trainer
Three crashes, three rebuilds from scratch, each body stronger than the last.
Broken legs, a blind eye and no right ACL, each crash six months before a big show. Sam Rossiter on rebuilding from basic movements and telling fear from danger.
Asked how he bounced back in time:
In those six months, three years running, I managed to learn to walk properly again, get back to lifting and put on some lost mass, then diet down to contest condition, every year surpassing my previous conditions and then every year having a bigger accident! After so many rebuilds from scratch and basic movements, I learnt that the problem I faced was really my attitude towards the problem. Most people would see this as being faced with two choices: to give up, or push forward. Being raised by my parents that giving up was never an option, my reality was that I faced only one option. To push forward. The man who says he can, and the man who says he can't, are both usually right.
Asked what calisthenics gives him that lifting weights does not:
Lifting as heavy as I can is a primal desire I have to be as strong as I can, but it has truly shown me that to be a master of my physical form I have to be able to control my own bodyweight too. Handstands, balance, jumping and backflips all use our fast-twitch, isometric and rapid eccentric muscle fibres and contractions, which are slightly different to the usual stress for hypertrophy caused by pure resistance training.
Asked what he has learned about danger and fear:
All my injuries served a purpose by making me smarter, understanding what went wrong and why, so I theoretically now have an advantage. Do not misunderstand: ‘danger’ is very real. However ‘fear’ is a product of our own creation. ‘Fear’ is our thoughts of the potential consequences of failure. Separating fear from danger comes down to our judgment. Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment!