Elite Expert Doug Noll

How to Calm Anyone in 90 Seconds with Doug Noll

June 15, 2026

Jenn Foster, co-owner of Elite Online Publishing, interviews Doug Knoll—lawyer turned mediator, peacemaker, and author of the upcoming book Empathy Leadership.

Listen Below:

Watch Below:


Click here to access all of Elite Expert Insider podcasts.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode:

  • The Technique of Affect Labeling for Conflict Resolution

  • Demonstration and Mechanics of Affect Labeling

  • Self-Labeling and Dyadic Labeling

Quotes:

“When you name what someone’s feeling, it inhibits the centers of the brain associated with negative emotion and activates a prefrontal region of the brain in charge of emotional self regulation.”

“We learn how to put on a good front, but we’re never authentic, because to be authentic is to lose connection, because we’re going to get chastised or crumpled by an adult.”

“We, my colleague Laurel Coffer and I co founded Prison of Peace. And we started training women in the largest, most violent women’s prison in the world, which was here in California back in 2010.”

About Doug Noll

Doug Noll is a lawyer-turned-peacemaker who helps leaders, executives, and organizations defuse high-stakes conflict before it costs trust, talent, or deals. After 22 years as a trial lawyer, Doug shifted from winning arguments to stopping them, becoming an expert in emotional de-escalation, empathy, and conflict resolution.

He has mediated more than 1,500 disputes, teaches Decision Making Under Uncertainty and Conflict at Pepperdine’s Straus Institute, and co-founded the Prison of Peace Project, where he trained maximum-security inmates to reduce violence using empathy-based skills.

Doug teaches what he calls emotional precision under pressure. Instead of explaining, fixing, or forcing rational conversation when emotions run high, he shows people how to name what others are feeling so their nervous system calms down and real problem-solving can begin.

His real-world impact spans from prisons to boardrooms, with those he trained inside correctional facilities now mentoring others as mediators and peacemakers. Doug is also the author of De-Escalate, which has sold more than 40,000 copies in five languages, and his upcoming book Empathy Leadership shows leaders how to defuse conflict quickly without losing authority, trust, or connection.

Book: De-Escalate and Empathy Leadership

Podcast: Listening with Leaders

Learn More Here

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Video URL: https://youtu.be/dc0TphlaeFo

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