Jennifer Carter, Kimberly Hurd, Cory Leschel, and Latrice Leake facilitated a fishbowl session at Apartmentalize 2026 called "Walking in Someone Else's Brain," and from where I was sitting, it was one of the more honest conversations I saw all week.

The fishbowl format put a small group of speakers at the center of the room, sharing their experiences with neurodivergence while everyone else listened. No panel podium, no PowerPoint, no safe distance between the speakers and the audience. Just people talking about how their brains work, in front of a room full of multifamily professionals who showed up ready to hear it and when the time came, inviting audience members to share their feedback, insights and ideas as well. 

Jennifer has spent more than 15 years in multifamily and is the mom of an autistic son. Latrice Leak  and Kimberly Hurd are successful industry stalwarts whose  nuerodivergence has brought creativity and nuance to their work. Cory Leschel discussed the imapct of neurodiversity  on his work and career as well. That context matters, because it meant this session didn't come from a textbook. It came from real experiences and real moments of working through challenges. 

Something the session surfaced that I hadn't thought much about before was how much the physical environment itself affects neurodivergent people at work. Overhead fluorescent lighting, the kind that's standard in most offices and conference spaces, can cause real discomfort for people with ADHD, autism, or dyslexia. Add open-plan offices with constant noise and movement, rigid schedules, and little control over sensory input, and you've built a work environment that makes it genuinely harder for some people to think, focus, and do their jobs well.

Most traditional office environments weren't designed with any of that in mind. Neurodivergent brains tend to do their best work when there's flexibility, some degree of sensory control, and the ability to manage how tasks get structured. We've just never built for that by default.

The discussion also brought multiple ideas for more effective meetings (fidget spinners, walking meetings, etc) and strategies for better individual contributions (body doubling, and time blocking using the pomodoro method)

The feedback from the session said what a lot of people in that room were probably feeling. "Wow, it's not just me." "Real-world scenarios that were easy to relate to." One attendee who identified as neurodivergent said the conversation gave them language for challenges they'd been carrying quietly, while also naming the strengths that come with processing the world differently.

That's a hard thing to pull off in a 60-minute conference session. A lot of programming in our industry can stay at the surface level. This session brought up the truth around how varied our brains can be and asked people to sit with the uncomfortable realization that they've been assuming their teammates all experience work the same way they do. Most importantly,  Latrice, Cory, Kimberly and Jennifer  gave attendees somewhere to go with that realization besides just feeling bad about it.

I kept thinking about how relevant this topic and the implementation of these tools is to where we are right now as an industry. Centralization, restructuring, and new technology  are stacking on top of more technology.  Leaner teams are absorbing more change than they signed up for often under ever more chaotic environments. All of this puts pressure on how people communicate and how leaders understand the people they're responsible for. Knowing that your team doesn't all process change, feedback, or stress the same way isn't a nice-to-have, this session showed that it is an imperative leadership skill. 

Jennifer, Kimberly, Cory, and Latrice used their vulnerability and expertise to bring awareness to neurodivergence and actionable takeaways for leaders in a vibrant and impactful educational session that highlights why attended NAA's Apartmentalize conference can pay off in ways you might not have imagined.