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.
Tadej Pogačar · Cyclist
In the mountains everything is unpredictable. That is where he wins.
Two Tours de France before twenty-three. Pogačar on riding by instinct so that nobody knows what he will do next.
Asked why he rides to feel rather than to the numbers:
I think that me just riding on instinct allows me to do different things at different times, and then there is less of a textbook way of performing, or the other teams and riders knowing what I am going to do and when. If a certain rider or team has a certain tactic, it’s a lot easier [to counter]. When teams lead out a sprint you know how it’s going to play out. In the mountains everything is unpredictable – everything. And when you’re racing against someone who doesn’t have a set time to push or typical pace increase, you can never balance out tactics against them. What helped me in defending my title was the extra conditioning that I had. I felt it made such a big difference, even if spending time away from the bike in training and eating more went against some of my instincts.
Asked whether cycling is mostly raw strength:
Yes but more of cycling is about when to use that strength and stamina. You are not flat out all the time, and in the mountains it really is a tactical game. One good or bad move, one good or bad hour, can be the difference between cycling down the Champs-Élysées with the yellow jersey, and not. As they say, you can’t win the Tour de France on the mountains, but you can lose it there. This, I think, is crucial to every rider who wants to be on the podium. You push and you protect, but you never let any rival know what mode you are in. When they find out, you have problems.
Asked what he missed most in lockdown:
[...] Actually what I missed most was the pressure. There is only so much a feeling of competitiveness you can generate by yourself, and as a sportsman you live for that pressure. You’re built to withstand that and when you don’t have that release, it’s hard.