#11 Morgann Elyce Davis: Deep self-knowing & defining your own success

Welcome to blog post #11 of The Insightful Creative.

Morgann and I met for the first time in person last year at the Philadelphia Flute Fair in West Chester, PA, but we had known of each other for years, connected through our shared mentor, Stephanie Jutt, when we studied at UW-Madison—though at different times.

Through following Morgann on social media, I noticed the care and thoughtfulness she brings to her teaching, often reflected in the posts she shared about her students. I was also drawn to her writing, where she poses reflective questions about creativity that encourage a deep self-knowing and awareness in what we do.

Morgann reflects: “What would happen if we could focus on both the quality of our work and the quality of our life based sheerly on our own perspective? What if we decided to focus on our interior lives? Could it make us better artists to prioritize feeling at home in ourselves?”

Morgann’s insights resonate with the idea that self-awareness is key to defining success. As she puts it, “Understanding our personal needs in life and music opens the doors to true success, meaning success defined on our own terms. It’s really the only way we can truthfully define success…It will take time to figure out our priorities and sort out the noise, and to set boundaries around what we want instead of what we are told to want.”

“Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant—there is no such thing,” says artist Georgia O’Keefe, in words that seem fitting here. She continues: “Making your unknown known is the important thing—and keeping the unknown always beyond you—catching crystallizing your simpler clearer version of life—only to see it turn stale compared to what you vaguely feel ahead—that you must always keep working to grasp—the form  must  take care of itself if you can keep your vision clear.”

We need to “develop (our) own compass and trust it,” playwriter and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin once said - and Morgann invites us to reflect on this, asking ourselves what we want our everyday life to look like.  She asks us, “In the end, you are the only one who experiences your inner world, so shouldn’t it make you happy?”

Composer John Cage reflects that we simply need to wake up “to the very life we’re living, which is so excellent once one gets one’s mind and desires out of its way and lets it act of its own accord.”

Morgann adds, “It’s probably safe to assume that for all the explaining and over-explaining we do, we simply can’t force the opinions that others will have of us or our work. What we can do is explore whether that matters by focusing on creating both work and life that feels closest to our true selves. Whatever that looks like is up to you.”

What work or life feels closest to your true self?