Napoleon Hill wrote his masterpiece, Think and Grow Rich, in the thick of the Great Depression. It is credited with helping end the Depression by providing people with the strategies they needed to take control of their future by single-mindedly pursuing a definite purpose. He speaks directly to his original readership when he writes, “You have been disappointed, you have undergone defeat during the depression, you have felt the great hurt within you crushed until it bled. Take courage, for these experiences have tempered the spiritual metal of which you are made—they are assets of incomparable value.”