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.
Steven Tyler · Singer, Aerosmith
He names the worst thing he did, without dressing it up.
Bullied as a boy in the Bronx, nearly fifty years fronting a rock band, rehab, children, regrets. The singer on owning all of it, the ego included.
Asked about being bullied growing up in the Bronx:
I have and I’m always keen to speak about it because it should give hope and belief to anyone going through that, in the sense that as much as it’s difficult to believe when you are a kid, what defines you as a person is what you feel in yourself, not how others judge you. I had some rough times growing up because, y’know, I wasn’t conventional. I looked different and I acted different, but the older I got the more that became a reason to like me, not dislike me. And we all know the route behind bullying is that the bullies are very often just passing it on. I think once you get your head around that you realise it’s a waste of time being intimidated by these people. It’s best to answer them long-term. I have done that; anyone else can too.
Asked whether he was a good person to be married to:
I married her and we had Mia and, you know, I abandoned them. I left them up here in the house and I am not the happiest person about that. I talk to them about it a lot and I really still haven’t forgiven myself for it, I’m a realist. I know what I did regardless of whether I was on drugs a lot. People have told me. That’s okay. I hear them, I get it. But a piece of me, my heart is still broken that I did that to her. I think that’s why I am so shameful about it because the me that is me that you are talking to right now, knows better.
Asked whether life on the road ever tires him:
Never. For me it is all about respect. People are willing to put their money down, come out and join the party, travelling for hundreds of miles in the process. The commitment to the band and the shared appreciation we have for music is something that can never be understated or unappreciated. The truth is these people who come to see us are my lifeblood… not financially, but in giving me the confidence, the heart and the stamina to keep going.