In today’s push for productivity, it often focuses on the one thing you are supposed to achieve in life.

Well, our next friend Beulah exceeded expectations in her lifetime by always asking the question, how can I make this better? Which led to not just one big idea, but (literally) hundreds of ideas that came to life (no pressure…😅).

A Look Back In Time

In Raleigh, North Carolina an inquisitive and curious child came into the world. Beulah Louise Henry was creative to the point she constantly saw how things could be better and had multiple suggestions to go with each comment she made.

While this attitude towards anything made others step back, Beulah stepped forward in her ambition of invention. She made her first sketches at the age of 9 and received her first patent GB191124647A by the time she was 25 years old.

In her words, "I invent because I cannot help it - new things just thrust themselves on me." Over her lifetime she made improvements to the typewriter, created mechanisms in dolls that opened and closed their eyes, and a hair curler. Even when engineers didn’t believe in her ideas, she created prototypes with any supplies she could find, just to convince them of her invention.

Inventor’s Impact

Beulah invented across her entire lifetime. She never married (very taboo for the era) and she did what she loved doing. She didn’t answer to anybody and was always seeking solutions beyond the limitations of her day (even when the engineers shook their heads at her).

If there is anything to take away from her story, it is that just because you may not have the skills, or resources, or even technology, your ideas can impact whole industries like Beulah’s did.

"If necessity is the mother of invention, then resourcefulness is the father"