Why I can’t stop listening to “Hamilton”

Question for you…

How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore, and a Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot in the Caribbean by providence impoverished in squalor, grow up to be a hero and a scholar?

That’s the opening line from the opening song of the Broadway smash hit Hamilton, a hip-hop musical about America’s first Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton is the creation of Lin-Manuel Miranda, someone who might be the most creatively brilliant mind of our time.

Besides the fact the music is spectacular by nearly all standards (composition, lyrical wordplay, lyrical depth, storytelling ability) here’s why Hamilton is the only thing I’ve listened to since finding out about it in early November (it’s currently late December), and bring up in nearly every conversation: Lin-Manuel Miranda made a generic topic the talk of the town by merging interests to make it highly relatable.

Let’s take a walk down Lin Lane to see how this came together, and what we can learn from it…

I came across the story of Lin-Manuel Miranda while watching 60 Minutes on TV.

Lin-Manuel is a playwright and actor. He loves musicals.

But he also loves hip hop.

Musicals and rap music traditionally haven’t gone together. But he took two interests of his and decided to merge them. He said, ‘I want to be the guy who makes rap-sicals.’

This is crucial because it’s so easy to keep your interests, hobbies, and ‘personas’ separate from one another. ‘Work me is different from home me, is different from weekend me, is different from intramural softball me.’

Forget all that noise, it’s YOU at the end of the day.

Instead of keeping everything in a silo, find two interests of yours and merge them.

Once Lin-Manuel merged his interests, all he needed was a catalyst.

He was on vacation when he picked up a biography about Alexander Hamilton.

He became so enthralled by the life of Hamilton, that he decided he wanted — nay, NEEDED — to write a musical documenting his life. But remember Lin-Manuel wasn’t going to just create any old play. He was going to create a hip-hopera.

So he writes a hip hop musical about the life of Alexander Hamilton, called Hamilton.

He knew he wanted to do something different. All he needed was a catalyst. Reading the biography was his catalyst.

“By the end of the second chapter, I was on Google saying ‘someone’s already made this into a musical.’ How can anyone NOT have made this into a musical?” — Lin-Manuel Miranda

When you merge interests, you skyrocket your chances of finding a catalyst because you’ve opened up the playing field to more possibilities. Sure, it was a chance encounter that he picked up the Hamilton biography, but your mind naturally gets into a more creative mode when you don’t treat everything in your life as exclusive.

“I drew a direct line between Hamilton writing his way out of his circumstances, and the rappers I’d grown up adoring.” — Lin-Manuel Miranda

Because it’s two of your interests and not just one, you become SO MUCH MORE EXCITED to do it. AND ON TOP OF THAT, you don’t get caught in a ‘yeah I’ll get to it later’, or a ‘everything has to be perfect before I can start’ mode. You just go.

“I think the secret sauce of this show is that I can’t believe this story’s true. It’s such an improbable and amazing story and I learned about it while I was writing it. And I think that enthusiasm is baked into the recipe.” — Lin-Manuel Miranda

You increase your ability to do/create/give MORE.

What happened as a result of Lin merging interests? Well, someone’s ears immediately perk up when they hear there is a hip hop musical about the life of Alexander Hamilton. Check that, everyone’s ears perk up. See, when you merge interests, because it’s so unique, people aren’t going to get it at first. But they will be interested enough to learn more.

“I say hip-hop, Alexander Hamilton, and everyone laughs…and then by the end, they’re not laughing, because they’re in it. Because they get sucked into the story, just like I got sucked in the story.” — Lin-Manuel Miranda

Remember, when it’s TWO of your interests and not just one, you become so much more excited to do it. And the energy and creativity you feed into that output is INFECTIOUS. People vibe off of your vibes.

What people? The beauty of merging interests is you get the attention of multiple audiences. With Hamilton, Miranda attracts people who like hip-hop, people who like musicals/theater, AND people interested in U.S. history.

And for people like me who have an interest in all 3 — well people like me are beside ourselves, and we become ultimate advocates. I love hip-hop, I get down with musicals, and U.S. history fascinates me, in particular the revolutionary war period.

And clearly I’m not the only one who has taken notice. In its first 3 months on Broadway, Hamilton pulled in $57 MILLION DOLLARS IN ADVANCE TICKET SALES! $57 Million!!

And Lin-Manuel Miranda gets to soak in second performing on a stage he loves, in a style he adores, about a person he admires.

THIS is how you make an impact, and THIS is why I can’t stop listening to Hamilton.

I write more about how to Discover Your Inner Awesome at www.idealemon.com.