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.
Volkan Oezdemir · UFC light heavyweight
His first UFC fight came at two weeks' notice. He said yes.
Eight wins inside the first minute, and he offers to make the tea. A Swiss striker on saying yes before he was ready, and on the moment a fighter's mind gives up.
Asked about his first fight in the UFC:
My first UFC fight was only two weeks' notice, so I wasn't really ready, and at that time in my life I also wasn't training that hard. I got the call and I was: “OK, now I've got to go!” I just said yes on the phone like that, but I didn't even know what was my weight was. So I went on the scale, checked my weight and I was like: “Oh, now I need to take care of the diet!” After that, when I had the full camp and good training, I was unstoppable.
Asked how he stays strong when a fight is not going to plan:
You know it's going to be hard. It's sport, you know you're going to be fighting in front of thousands, or millions of viewers. You know, during the fight it's going to be: “Oh fuck! Why the fuck do I do this? Why I didn't stay home? Having a regular job is so much easier.” You know it's going to happen, these thoughts but that's also why you prepare for it, so you don't feel that and you just focus on your fight, and focus on winning. If it's becoming hard, just think about what's happening: “Left, right, I did that one more time. I'm going to go to the right now, I'm going to do this.” You have to think a lot, otherwise you're just going to be dumb and go for stuff and get caught all the time, so you need to be ahead of your opponent.
Asked what he sees in fighters who lack the will to win:
With determination, even though you're not going to succeed doing something because you don't have fitness, or physical capacity, you're never going to give up. But you do see people giving up during a fight, and the worst is when they give up and they have the physical capacities to get out of stuff, but they don't have the balls to do it. The mind stops, that's why your body stops. But if your mind is still there – unless you get knocked out – your body can follow.