Birkenstocks and pantyhose don’t mix. If you’ve tried it, I know you know.

This, I learned the hard way as I tumbled down each one of the thirteen wooden stairs from my bedroom to the first floor. I was up early and trying to get ready before my two young kids awoke so that I could focus on helping them. In reality, I was short-changing myself on sleep and unsurprisingly, a grumpy mama bear trying unsuccessfully to get all of us out the door. It wasn’t an ideal start for any of us.

I found new bruises every day for the next two weeks, a wake-up call confirming that I was not managing things well. For the past year, I had been lobbying to continue working from home two days per week, having already proved I could work effectively remotely. I tried to explain how much this flexibility meant to me and offered to come into the office 50% of the time, and for any necessary meeting – all for a job that was conducted 90% over the phone. It seemed reasonable to me but, unfortunately, not to my leadership. My pleas fell on deaf ears.

I didn’t have language for it then, but I was experiencing autistic burnout. It would be over twelve years until I would discover that I have autism and that the exhaustion from what I call the “construct of work” (Kumar, 2023) was simply too much for my wiring. From commuting downtown every day on the noisy and crowded subway system, with its seventeen-inch seating that failed to make room for winter coats and widening waistlines, to a workday spent far from natural light in grim Toronto weather, where the streets were just a darker shade of the gray slush and clouds that smothered the city. I could feel it sucking the life right out of me.

I negotiated my way out of that corporate job in January 2008, at perhaps the worst economic moment in years, and committed whole-heartedly to the organizing and productivity consultancy I had started part-time while on an extended maternity leave with my second child. I pitched what I was sure was a “story” to national radio: the irony that a company that made and sold equipment to enable people to work from home was prohibiting their employees from doing so. Unfortunately, they also did not agree.

For the next few years, I loved the life-changing impact and intimacy of helping busy professionals organize their spaces and schedules. One day when working with a successful young employee in his home office, he asked if I would consider coaching him on career development. “Sure,” I said, “we can work together for as long as it’s serving you.” Over several months I saw him take decisive steps toward his values. Not long afterward, a client, who was also a life coach, told me that my language was very coach-like.

I grew more curious about this concept of coaching, but it wasn’t until another more serious health incident invited me to think hard about how I would be able to continue to serve. It took a couple of years to figure out what exactly was going on and by 2014, I had a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis (MS), an auto-immune disease in which your own immune system begins to attack your nervous system – your brain, and your spine. Attacks were continuing to have more severe consequences and it was clear that I needed a life redesign. I completed a Graduate Certificate in Executive Coaching with Royal Roads University in 2016 and began to spend more time coaching executives on productivity and performance than travelling around town creating organized spaces. I also became more informed on well-being, critical to my own healing.

Though clients often reached out about productivity concerns, “to do” lists, procrastination, perfectionism, and boundary-setting being hot topics, we would almost always zoom out and look at values and well-being. I created the Productivity CPR™ model which looks at setting intention, managing attention, and optimizing execution, and have enjoyed supporting people on their path to effectiveness, efficiency, and enjoyment.

As you might imagine, working on productivity, I came across many clients with executive function differences and at the same time was discovering neurodivergence within my own family. I learned that the “highly sensitive temperament”, considered a “normal” way of being rather than a disorder and present more than one in five people, and identified as such for almost a decade.

In 2022, I created a podcast, Happy Space® (Kumar, 2022), to explore how create a more hospitable world for the sensitive. I began by looking both at individual skill-building and self-regulation, but also at design, curious about what more can be done to create inviting environments. It is the podcast and a desire to better understand other forms of neurodivergence that led to my autism diagnosis.

After hundreds of radio segments on productivity, I finally got the call I was waiting for. The national radio station that had determined I had did not have a story back in 2008, called asking for my opinion on RTO mandates. With only nine percent of employees interested in being back in the office full-time, tensions continue as leaders continue to try to exert control and employees push back. (Angus Reid Institute, 2025) It has been validating to share messages of accessibility and inclusion in line with concerns for the bottom line.

Today, I continue to explore the design of safer environments that invite more inclusive participation on Happy Space, and coaching clients on performance and inclusion. I also offer consulting services on the concept of “neurological safety” – the conditions that invite us to move forward with ease or in other words, “keep calm and carry on”. I’m also shepherding the growth of the Hidden Disabilities Sunflower program in Canada. My goal is to be a conduit for compassion and as the Sunflower is a clear cue for compassion, inviting employees to treat customers and colleagues with more patience and kindness, it’s a perfect fit. I’m often in conversation on LinkedIn and Instagram @clarekumar and would be delighted to hear from you.