Dr Jackie King has spent the last 20 years trying to find a way to understand herself and how her life turned out the way it has.

As the primary carer for three children and stretched by competing identities, her sense of otherness was first created by her gender. Like many professional women struggling to fulfil their potential, after her divorce Jackie began rebuilding her identity and trying to understand her internal narrative. And then the thread that had been there the whole time – her Jewish identity – was brought to the fore by events in the Middle East. Combined with her status as a divorced woman, she became The Ultimate Other.

A curious, lifelong learner, Jackie delved into the world of design thinking and discovered that she could use these powerful identities to reconstruct her life – by treating herself as the work in progress that needed to be iterated. Using design thinking, Jackie learned to treat herself with empathy and embrace her otherness.

In this deeply personal and vulnerable book, Jackie lays out the reflections, processes and activities that she utilised and experienced on her journey, and offers readers the opportunity to do the same.