Peter Assad on Life, Lessons & Legacy

We recently had the chance to connect with Peter Assad and have shared our conversation below.

Good morning Peter, we’re so happy to have you here with us and we’d love to explore your story and how you think about life and legacy and so much more. So let’s start with a question we often ask: What is something outside of work that is bringing you joy lately?
Travel. Recently returned from the UK/Ireland with my wife Grace. Incredible time overseas, packed with all kinds of memories I bet I’ll be talking about for decades to come. More than just the places and stories, it’s the conversations and experiences with people that were truly the most incredible. I ended up writing this poem describing one such moment at a Resound songwriting retreat in beautiful Yorkshire:

Tribe

By the second note,
the room no longer belonged to me—
our voices wove like rivers rushing,
carrying us past walls, past edges, past silence.

I’d somehow envisioned a quiet moment,
the whisper of my own song—until the final chorus.

But here, in this circle—
in this tribe—
we became a chorus
before my first breath had a chance to settle.

No waiting.
No pause.
Just the swift rise
of many tongues—
an electric pulse
igniting air,
throwing wide
the doors
to a place
where fear melts
into sound,
and loneliness
dissolves
into harmony.

No one sings over the other—
in this holy cacophony,
in this sacred noise
that holds every cracked voice,
every trembling note,
every story just aching to be heard.

In that rapture, I felt it:
the ancient thread woven through us all—
the fierce, tender insistence of belonging.

Not as soloists locked behind panes of glass,
but as wild voices spilling into the night,
each one held, each one free—
an echo and a refuge,
a promise made in melody:

We are here.
We are together.
And boy, do we sing.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
For a while now, we’ve been introducing ourselves this way: “Peter and Grace are poems of grace, and so are you.” Poems of grace has been our creative catchall over the years, whether watercolor paintings, albums, books, public speaking and more. We’ve focused a lot of our effort on expressing this personally, yet our heart has always been helping others like YOU step into your own creative calling—in whatever expression that may take, which leads us into a tool I’ve been personally so excited about sharing called Creative Compass.

Let me ask, have you ever felt like the creative process seems to work for everybody else… but you?​

You start projects, but rarely finish.
You crave structure, but it kills your flow.
You thrive in teams, but so often it feels like you’re just dragging everyone along.

If that’s the case, hear me:

You’re not broken.
You’re not doing it wrong.
You’re just uniquely wired, and that’s a beautiful thing!

We each possess a blend of creative instincts, work style, and teamwork synergy that are shaped by the combination of three forces:

1) WHAT vs. HOW
Do you tend to prioritize the product or the process?

2) PACE vs. URGENCY
Do you approach projects more like a marathon or a sprint?

3) AUTONOMY vs. COLLABORATION
How involved do you want others in your creative process?

These three polarities end up yielding eight unique archetypes:

Cartographer
You love mapping new paths with intention. Quietly strategic, you work methodically to shape frameworks that help others find their way.

Conductor
You guide process, pace, and people with clarity. You move fast, communicate clearly, and help others get things done in sync and on time.

Craftsman
You care about quality and flow. Quiet and consistent, you work best when left to your own rhythm to shape something thoughtful and enduring.

Engineer
You’re a builder and a fixer. Fast-moving and highly focused, you value elegant systems and structure that make work (and life) more efficient.

Forger
You move quickly and independently, shaping raw ideas into finished work with grit. You thrive on pressure and produce prolifically behind the scenes.

Mender
You’re a gentle guide and trusted teammate. Calm, helpful, and detail-attuned, you excel at refining, repairing, and supporting what matters.

Producer
You love bringing big ideas to life, fast and together. Energetic, bold, and vision-driven, you rally teams to move with speed toward a shared goal.

Weaver
You’re relational and steady. You see how everything fits together and enjoy co-creating with others, weaving people and projects toward meaning.

At a quick glance, you likely have an idea of which you may be. Discovering this and leaning into it has massive implications in your own work flow, figuring out next steps, and navigating team dynamics. We’ve been blogging about this on our website, including a short 9 question survey you can take and share with others here: poemsofgrace.com/creative-compass

Be among the first to discover your true north and begin navigating your own creativity!

Appreciate your sharing that. Let’s talk about your life, growing up and some of topics and learnings around that. Who saw you clearly before you could see yourself?
Nearly 15 years ago now, I was at an all-time low. I’d just finished giving a talk on a subject I was passionate about, poured my heart and soul into it, but the feedback I received at the time from several around me gave me the impression I should never do that again. Based on my track record at the time—of only being asked to do this once in a span of three whole years—I’d nearly gotten to the point of giving up on the idea of public speaking altogether.

Fast forward to today. Of all the things I get to do in life: taking in concepts, breaking down ideas, finding the right way to convey something that will bring insight and inspiration, and helping others grow to do the same are among some of my very favorite things to do. Clearly something changed, but what?

Enter Jeff Funderburk. As a master communicator, I cared about whatever it is he had to say. And despite what others failed to see, he saw something in me that was worth the risk. He walked me through an exercise, giving me a short prompt and a dry erase marker: “Peter, here’s a subject. What comes to mind?” I went to town filling up that whiteboard with everything that came to mind, ranging from quotes, to metaphors, to personal life stories until I had written my brain dry.

To my surprise, he circled 4 key pieces, and said, “This here is a four-part series of talks,” which was hilarious because I legitimately thought I could convey it all in a single sitting! What he helped me realize is: I have a lot to say! But more than that, he helped me recognize how to go about communicating my ideas in digestible amounts, learning how to plate my ideas so others could benefit from them rather than feeling perpetually blasted with a firehose. This moment of him seeing me before I could see myself changed everything for me, and it’s a gift I’ve enjoyed paying forward for others whenever possible.

What’s something you changed your mind about after failing hard?
This dovetails well from the last question, except instead of trying to cram too much into one talk, I think there’s a tendency in all of us to try to cram everything into one job, or role, or season in life.

As a kid, I wanted to draw.
As a teen, I wanted to play soccer.
As a soccer player, I wanted to sing.
As an art major, I wanted to write music.
As a music teacher, I wanted to start a church.
As a pastor, I wanted to paint.
On and on it went…

The failure was placing too much expectation on any one thing be everything for me. But I’ve come to find I don’t need to figure out what I’ll be “when I grow up” as if a particular task or role was ever meant to be the sum total of who I am. Now I’m just learning to enjoy it all, and it’s nowhere near as burdensome as pigeonholing myself into just one arena.

Here’s to savoring each moment for what it is rather than what it’s not—to cherishing the people around us and the work before us.

Sure, so let’s go deeper into your values and how you think. Is the public version of you the real you?
For better or worse, what you see is what you get.

Before we go, we’d love to hear your thoughts on some longer-run, legacy type questions. When do you feel most at peace?
This is the third time in two weeks I’ve been asked this question, and each of the other times I’ve not totally known how to answer it but this time, something just clicked in my head so here goes:

I don’t. Peace is not something I feel, at least not in the way you might expect.

The future pulls me forward. It’s not my finish line, but the reason I begin anything. Deep in my bones, I’m hardwired toward movement. Stagnation and status quo kill me. I can’t settle for what is—not when I see what could be. How do you possibly feel peace when you perpetually feel the need to move toward something…more?

I think it’s a lot like Great White Sharks. Not all sharks require this, but there are a few like Great Whites that require movement to stay alive. The moment they stop moving, they stop breathing. Peace, for me, is breath. It’s the ability to catch your breath, to settle in, to truly be at rest in who you are without any need to perform.

That’s why answering this question on when I feel most at peace feels so counter-intuitive. I don’t feel it when I’m at rest, and I certainly don’t feel it at the moment of arrival (because there’s always somewhere else, somewhere more, to arrive at). No, it’s in the movement itself that peace is found for me—in being who I’ve been made to be. And from there, I’m able to bring that peace with me into times of rest and times of completion.

Contact Info:

Image Credits
pc: Peter Assad, Grace Assad, Bailey Fraccascia

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