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.
Sarah Bateup · CBT therapist
You cannot call a plumber for a painful feeling.
A therapist who has made mental health her life's work, on why most of us drop the apps within a fortnight, and why we try to push hard feelings away.
Asked why so few people stick with mental health apps:
Very few people will achieve their goal just by reading the book or using the app. Additionally, we know that few people will finish the book or continue using the app. That does not mean that it is impossible to learn to knit, lose weight or treat anxiety. It’s just that this method of learning requires a great deal of tenacity and most of us don’t have that. So, the fact that most users do not engage (for any length of time) with mental health apps, does not tell us anything about the challenge of treating common mental health disorders. It just tells us, at the current time and with the technology we have, that apps are not the most effective way of teaching a human being a skill.
Asked whether we should look inside ourselves before reaching for a fix:
As human beings we are hardwired to try and ‘push away” unpleasant sensations, feelings and emotions. This is both normal and understandable. We’re also problem solvers and so we will seek to find solutions to our problems. For example, if we got home and found that we had a burst water pipe, and a puddle of water we would seek ways of solving that problem… turn off the water at the mains, call a plumber, clean up the water, claim on the insurance – but the same techniques are less effective with painful emotions.
Asked whether making change in mental health is hard:
It is immensely challenging. I see this as my life’s work. There is so much to do and so many things that are so dreadfully wrong. Currently only 25% of people with anxiety or depression have access to treatment [in the UK]. Apps are trying to fill this gap and they are cheap. NHS commissioners are attracted by cost effectiveness but at the price of effectiveness. That is not say that apps are bad but they cannot possibly fill the void.