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.
Travis Pastrana · Freestyle motocross rider
Once you are in, you are in. You cannot unring a bell.
Travis Pastrana flew a heavy bike with no suspension over the Caesars Palace fountains, the jump that nearly killed his hero Evel Knievel. He says hesitation is the real danger.
Asked how much of a stunt is trust and how much is nerve:
Past that, when you’re actually doing it, it’s about following through and pushing past at the very moment when you feel you want to hold back. That’s the worst thing you can do – hold back – if when I know I need speed on a ramp, any hesitation is potentially a death sentence, and that’s what I love about jumps; the fact you have to go all-in on every jump, because the second you let doubt creep into the picture, you are gone. [...] That’s a message I like to bring forward into other aspects of my life. Follow through at every point and don’t doubt yourself, because the second you begin to do that the whole thing will unravel in front of you.
Asked how he manages fear:
To manage fear you have to recognise what it is. Is it fear of dying, fear of failing, fear of regret. These at some point will all start messing about and overlapping each other, so there is never an escape from fear, and you can only manage it to the point of realising that what will happen, will happen. [...] For me, fear is comprised of what is rational and what is irrational. The irrational stuff I can’t control, like worrying that my family are safe; the rational fear I can control 99% by making sure I prepare well for every jump or race. At the end of the day I know what my body does and I know what my motorcycle does, so there isn’t that much fear for me to come to terms with in that.
Asked whether there is room for second thoughts on the run-up:
No – once you’re in, you’re in. You cannot unring a bell. My father always told me to be a man of what I was going to do, and that means no second thoughts – it means following through on the promise you have made and putting your foot down.