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These days you’d have to live under a rock not to realize Alexander Hamilton is the current star of the Founding Fathers set.

His rise from humble beginnings is everything one could wish for in an American icon and being the star of the hottest show on Broadway doesn’t hurt either. If you can’t get a ticket to the show, Mental Floss has eleven valuable lessons you can still learn from Hamilton for free.

1. GENIUS COMES FROM HARD WORK.

“Men give me some credit for genius,” Hamilton once told a friend (at least according to later reports). “All the genius I have lies in this, when I have a subject in hand I study it profoundly. Day and night it is before me. I explore it in all its bearings. My mind becomes pervaded with it. Then the effort I have made is what people are pleased to call the fruit of genius. It is the fruit of labor and thought.”

Hamilton’s absurd work ethic was a theme throughout his life—over the course of a few months, he wrote 51 essays included in The Federalist Papers (compared to James Madison’s 29 and John Jay’s five). He did it all while keeping his day job working full time as a lawyer.

2. DON’T PROCRASTINATE.

A prolific writer, Hamilton didn’t let little things like sleep get in his way. In 1791, Congress was in an uproar over whether or not a national bank would be constitutional and George Washington had only 10 days to decide whether or not to veto the controversial bill that came before him. Hamilton—with the help of his wife, Elizabeth (often called Eliza)—stayed up all night and dashed off some 40 pages in favor of the bill, rebutting anti-bank arguments from men like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Hamilton could always be counted on to get his work done on time, if not early. “I hate procrastination,” he wrote in a letter in 1795…

Full story at Mental Floss.

Lessons from history.