Born in a one-room cabin in Virginia, Napoleon Hill (1883-1970), was an American author who came upon his life's purpose in 1908, when he met one of the most celebrated industrialist-philanthropists of the time, Andrew Carnegie, as part of a project to write about the lives of a series of financially successful, powerful men. Hill learnt that Carnegie believed in a kind of secret formula for success in the world, a simple set of rules which would do the trick for whoever could master them. Spotting the spark in Hill, Carnegie asked him if he could systematically analyse the lives of over five hundred noted personalities who seemed to have applied this very magic recipe for success for others to benefit from it. This was the primary impetus behind Hill's writing, Think and Grow Rich (1937), an e bestseller in the genre of personal success literature. Of these stories, the most moving story was about his own son, Blair, who was born without any hearing organs at all but, through all-tim faith and perseverance, grew up to be able to hear quite well. Later in life, Napoleon Hill addressed his many personal success teachings as "The Philosophy of Achievement, of which he considered democracy, capitalism, freedom and harmony to be significant constituents.