I am currently writing a textbook to help creative people develop and express their professional identities. This developmental process is often seen as something that either unfolds or not based on talent, but thirty years of teaching and mentoring have shown me that the process can and should be taught. For example, one of the first lessons I teach my students is how to observe something around them, draw a conclusion from their observation, act on this conclusion, evaluate the outcome of their action, and then make a new observation based on this outcome to reinitiate the process: observe, conclude, act, respond. This powerful procedure is deceptively simple and vanishingly easy to overlook, yet is what can lend traction to our most deeply innovative ideas, especially those quietly hiding in our latent awareness. Many people with extremely high creative aptitudes have never been asked, or thought consciously about, what they observe or why, and these people may not identify as “creative people” despite their substantial abilities. My book provides needed prompts for self-examination, and then lays out a framework for translating insights into action. It is primarily intended for university or conservatory students in professional programmes such as music, visual art, theatre, writing, or dance, but will also be relevant to general readers interested in developing insights, self-knowledge, and creative expression. The book will be structured to function both as a traditional textbook or as stand-alone modules, and will draw on materials I created for the three core professional development courses in the Interdisciplinary Music Studies programme at the University of Toronto: Building the Creative Path and Creative Identities in Music I / II. Descriptions of these courses can be seen in my course portfolio.