Summit At Sea 2023 Closing Plenary with Jac Ross, Lee England Jr., IN-Q, unders, and more

Good evening everybody. I just want to say thank you so much for sailing with us. Thank you Summit for organizing this. I think the Summit people are really made for this ship and this ship is made for you. So you all had a good time? Are you all ready to party? All right, have a fantastic party tonight and I'll hopefully see you on the dance floor. Cheers, thanks for coming, bye. All right, give it up one more time for Sir Richard Branson!

Michelle Antoinette Nelson: Hello everyone, welcome to our Sunset Farewell. My name is Michelle Antoinette Nelson, I am your host. So let me ask you — have you felt the serendipity of Summit? The magic of Summit? Have you run into the same person five times in different areas on this very large ship? That's a sign. There's connection here, there's magic, there's love. We spoke about embodiment and movement and flow and embracing passion and curiosity.

So this evening we have such a beautiful treat for you. So much good energy, so much good love, so much good artistry. I am so happy and honored to bring up our next performers. Raised in the small town of Live Oak, Florida, our next performer has this love of music that stems from the earliest moments of his childhood. Today he's known to elicit standing ovations from cultural icons like Jamie Foxx, Billy Porter, Missy Elliott, and Chance the Rapper. Tonight Jack Ross is going to be joined by NY-based percussionist Caleb Spaulding and electric violinist Lee England Jr. So please get up for Jack Ross, Caleb Spaulding, and Lee England Junior!

[Jack Ross, Caleb Spaulding, and Lee England Jr. perform a set including "A Change Is Gonna Come," "Cruising Together," and "Drift Away"]

Michelle Antoinette Nelson: Keep clapping for Jack Ross, Caleb Spaulding, and Lee England Junior! Thank you so much. Now I want to bring up Summit co-founders Brett Leve and Jeff Rosenthal.

Jeff Rosenthal: I don't know if it shows through in the work product but this is our absolute passion and labor of love and it's something that we believe is our deepest purpose to be doing this work in the world. We feel honored, we feel humbled, we feel impressed by all of the people that have shown up from all over the world, literally four corners of the globe.

This event went on sale in 2019. By a show of hands, did anyone buy a ticket in 2019? I just want to say you guys have all aged like a fine wine. Everybody showed up ready to play, ready to learn, ready to grow. And I feel like through all of the tumult and the turmoil that everyone has emerged as just this shining bright version of themselves. It has been so delicious just to soak that all up with you here this weekend and we couldn't be more grateful and honored.

Brett Leve: We've been throwing events together since we were 19 years old — college parties in DC. They didn't look like this. I normally have some really beautiful platitude or saying but the truth of the matter is I'm fairly speechless. I think that's because feeling moves faster than logic. I really don't know what this feeling is. It feels so special. I want to thank the new people here at their first Summit who showed up with so much openness and eagerness and energy.

We have one very special thank you to shout out. We've been really blessed to do a lot of audacious, fun, wild, and incredible things with the support and love and generosity of spirit of this community. But I made a phone call about two and a half years ago that I think changed all of our lives for the better. There's one person who is the only reason that this event is happening today and that Summit is still around to preserve the collective energy and importance of this community. That is our CEO and our fearless leader, Jody Levy.

Jody Levy: I want you guys to know the reason that I'm standing here with you and the reason that we get to co-create the magic that we just experienced over the last three days is because we all show up for each other. The one thing I can tell you is that as much time and hard work and labor of love that we've all put into this — all of you invited friends, invited new people, and it's all because we know how special the magnet of this community is. It's like nothing else on the planet.

The way that we care for each other and the awareness of how delicate life is — we all just have to show up and enjoy every minute that we can and amplify it for one another because that's what this community is about.

I do want to thank our team — you guys killed it, you worked your asses off. The Summit Junto team — anybody that doesn't know what Summit Junto is, find out, ask around. This is how Summit lives in between our big events. It is the most special platform. And Summit Impact, which is our 501(c)(3), committed to all kinds of amazing initiatives with climate, social justice, and more. We have spent the past two and a half years creating all kinds of different things that will unite our community. We have a lot more coming very soon including some other big events. We're super grateful, we love you guys.

Michelle Antoinette Nelson: Up next we have a beloved member of the Summit community — someone who is passionate about the things that unite us as a people. He's an award-winning poet, multi-platinum songwriter, and bestselling author of "Inquire Within." He's one of Oprah's Super Soul 100 list of the world's most influential thought leaders and a groundbreaking storyteller. Please help me welcome to the stage, IN-Q.

IN-Q: I've been involved in the Summit community for about 10 years. So when I was thinking about what I wanted to perform today, I thought I could do some normal safe inspiring stuff or I could do some wild challenging stuff. What do you guys want?

I was watching the news recently and the newscaster said there's a new poll out and the poll says that Americans are more divided than any other time in history. And I thought, really? More than the Civil War? Because that's not what I experience. I know that we have a lot of disagreements, different belief systems, major problems and issues. But I travel around the country and the world performing and mostly what I experience is that people treat me the way that I treat them.

I'm a Scottish Lord with a self-help book, I'm a pacifist with a clenched fist and a right hook. I'm a revolutionary in a Starbucks. I've got a hipster beard that covers up my movie star looks. My Spotify shuffles Bon Iver to Sia. I'm like an armchair activist at an Ikea. I meditate to lose myself then get my best idea. I'm a journalist in North Korea, an immigrant in annexed Crimea.

I don't know whose side I'm on. Of course I know where I was born but don't know where I belong. I'm a guru in a grocery line, no one even notices who they're standing behind. A man of mankind — we only seem to come together for sports.

I'm a retired astronaut with an expired passport on the last resort at The Last Resort, sipping my ties to a paper straw on a pickleball court. Another tech-savvy silicon savior of sorts. Look at all the stupid shit our innovation affords.

I'm offended at a comedy show. My feelings got hurt and everyone should know. No matter where I choose to go, I want a safe space to be a victim. I'm at a book burning party reading Charles Dickens. I'm a humanitarian who mass murders chickens. I'm looking for a hero but it's Slim Pickens.

Everyone wants a revolution — you can't topple the government and check the SportsCenter highlights. We have way more in common than the algorithms think. We have way more in common than the politicians think. We have way more in common with each other than we think. And that's not what I think — it's what I have experienced.

[IN-Q performs "Sound the Alarm" — a rhythmic spoken word piece about systemic issues, waking up, and breaking free from systems of control]

Sound the alarm, something is wrong. People are tired of living a con. Waking and working and walking away with a payment that barely can cover their costs. Plus they are discovering flaws — look at the government, totally lost. Tending to bend to the corporate agenda depending on how they can render the laws. Open the doors, turn on the lights, see how they scatter from out of your sight. Taking the data 'cause all of it matters — mind over matter's a matter of time. Blind, deaf, and dumb, running away from the weight of the way that the world is confined. Wrapped in the rhythm, we're rats in the system, trapped in religion and money and pride.

Michelle Antoinette Nelson: For our final act, we are about to be blessed with an auditory journey unlike anything you've ever heard before. Our next guest was born in the Netherlands and has spent his career in service of the global dance community. He has co-created, played, and produced alongside artists like Satori, Acid Pauli, Boy George, and Booka Shade. Every track he creates is an alchemy of notes charged with intentionality to spread joy, raise the collective vibration, and to connect to something that cannot be seen or touched but can be felt. Please help me welcome to the stage, unders.

unders: There are a few opportunities in a lifetime to spread a message in the presence of countless brilliant minds. Minds that have so much to express, yet at this moment simply have to listen.

This is an invitation to close your eyes. Listen to the ocean as it imitates your breath. It is true that each one of you has an individual body made mostly of water, yet here to float all together through the same pulse of the waves in the sea — that reminds you the only constant of life is movement.

Experience yourself. Tune into your most raw self. One and only self. With one single purpose through the human experience: to relearn what you once knew. Relearn to love and show the love, free of belief systems. Relearn to grow beyond your bone capacity. Relearn to unriddle the labyrinths of your mind so you can find each other along the way. Relearn to build friendships that remind you to not take yourself too seriously, as you are here mostly to play. Relearn to forgive what you've done and focus on what you are becoming — right now, right in this blink.

Blink. Let the light come in. Open your eyelids slowly and let them unveil the magic of this moment. Because this moment is the only moment. And the next moment will be the only next moment. And so on, until the last breath. The unpredictable last contraction, where all the rivers in your veins will emerge into the estuary of an eternal common ocean. And after that last contraction, yet another expansion will come. So while you're here, in these pulses, be present and surrender to the music.

[unders performs a closing DJ set]