Improv: A New Approach

I recently heard Wynton Marsalis speak about the importance of Improvisation.
"It teaches self-acceptance and personal pride through developing your own unique sound. It teaches you to identify and investigate your own emotional identity through truthful self-analysis, contemplation, introspection, joy, love, sorrow, weakness, and pain. All through searching for something meaningful to play in our own language."
He was speaking in the context of music - but this lens gives me a fresh look at how to to approach Improv in the theater sense.  Maybe part of fleshing-out my character, is finding (and accepting) my own language and identity.