Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to, It's All Your Fault On True Story fm, the one and only podcast dedicated to helping you understand and increase your effectiveness with someone who may have a high conflict personality. I'm Megan Hunter, and I'm here with my co-host Bill Eddie, along with our special guest today, Doug Nole, who, um, was on our show last week. We'll talk more about that in a minute. Uh, Bill and I are the co-founders of the High Conflict Institute in San Diego, California. At hci, we provide training, consultation, and educational programs to clients all across the world. In today's episode, we are going to continue the conversation with Doug Noll, who is the founder or co-founder of the Prison of Peace Project. If you haven't listened to the first of this two part series, you'll want to go back and listen to it because it's just fascinating and you'll get to hear the rest on today's episode. Uh, but first, a couple of notes. If you have a question about a high conflict situation, send it to podcast@highconflictinstitute.com or on our website@highconflictinstitute.com slash podcast, where you'll also find the show notes and links. And please give us a ready to review and tell your friends, colleagues, or family about us, especially if they're dealing with a high conflict situation. We're very grateful. Now, I'd like to welcome back Doug Noll, co-founder of, of the Prison of Peace Project, and we are ready to just dive right in. So welcome back, Doug.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
One of the things I wanna just ask about for a couple minutes is your focus on skills is so important that skills can be learned even by people with the kind of history you're talking about. Now, we talk a lot about high conflict personalities, people who blame others a lot, all or nothing thinking unmanaged emotions, extreme behaviors. And the question is always, can they change or can't they change? And from what you're saying, you've really helped people change. And I wonder if you could say something about do you think that these changes, it's because of the, the particulars of your program? Do you think that they really, in many ways are probably, you know, seen as encourageable and yet they can learn skills? Just, just your thoughts about how people can change and who can change that? Some people never change and other people really change for good.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Almost every person has the ability to change and grow. Of all the thousands of students that we've taught in prison at Peace, we've only kicked one person out.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Hmm.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
And that was after giving him three years of opportunity to succeed. And he was a, an overt maladaptive narcissist, and he just could not learn these materials. He, there was something really wrong with him. He's functioning, He was a functioning person, but not, not socially functioning well. I think based on my experience, my, in my research, uh, you know, we all know our brains are highly, there's a thing known as neuronal plasticity or brain plasticity. It's the ability to change. The brain can literally rewire itself. I've witnessed this happen over and over and over again. Um, I'll just tell you a quick story how we, we, we, we, for the first five weeks at Valley State Prison for women, back in April and May of 2010, we went in and these women were dark black thorns. They were polite, but they, and they were not disrespectful, but they were suspicious su shut down human beings.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
We come in in week six and they were laughing and smiling and instead of black thorns in the room, we have beautiful roses. What just happened? But what happened was they'd been listening long enough and ethic labeling long enough and listening to emotions long enough to get in touch with their own humanity. And it only took 'em six weeks to make that transformation. Without that I was pretty amazing. Well, it turned out that with every cohort that we taught where men or women, it was that five to six week period where stuff started sinking in. And we began to see the major transformations in the personalities of the people we're working with. It's just because we take the time to teach them. We're all about the how. We don't tell them what to do. We tell them how to do it, and we, we work with them and practice with them and role play with them until they get the how down. And then we tell 'em, go out and practice this. And they're really resistant to practicing because it's very different. But then they do it, and then they grow and they change, and then everybody else around them sees the growth and change. And so, for example, at DS p w, six weeks into the program, we had 800 women on the waiting list to take the training. I was over about a quarter of the population of the prison.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Wow. It's a really strong argument for intensive training and skills and social skills and that, and that what we do is doesn't have an environment that necessarily reinforces from learning from each other, which seems like an important ingredient. But also it seems, you know, when I think of other conflict divorces or workplace coaching that, that it's a lack of intensity that may make it really hard for some people to learn. But also to me, this is so encouraging because people just tell people, Stop doing what you're doing and do it different. It's like , alcoholic, just say no, you know?
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Yeah. That doesn't work.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Intensive training can work. And your program is just so encouraging cuz it proved that people at the hardest circumstances can learn and they learn from each other it
Speaker 3 (06:08):
Sounds. That's right. Um, the state published a study years ago that showed that for every dollar invested in good rehabilitation programs, the state saves a thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Oh
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Yeah. And yet the legislature, less than 1% of the total budget of the State Department of Rehabilitation, uh, uh, corrections and rehabilitation is devoted to rehabilitation. Less than 1%.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Not surprising. I'm, I'm wondering too about the, uh, if some of the success comes from just having someone pay attention.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
Yeah. You know, I think that's true. One thing we have learned, and this is this is something we have to imbue in all our, our trainers, is you have to show up. What our students, incarcerated students really appreciated was for the, for many of them, we were the first people that we did exactly what we said we were gonna do. And we always showed up. You know, the only time we wouldn't show up is if we were set because we're not gonna take illness into the prison. But one of us was always there. In fact, there were times when we would show up and the yard would be locked down for one reason or another and nobody bothered to call us. We drive two hours to a prison. Oh, you can't get in today. It's locked down because we're giving everybody flu shots. Well, how long would that schedule I to scheduled two weeks ago? And nobody bothered to call us. No. Oh, we're sorry. run in your car and drive home. That happens. But you, but, but we got word in to the, to the guys that, Hey, we're outside. We can't get in because of the lockdown, but just want you to let you know that we're here. And when they hear that we went, go the extra mile to be there for them. Yeah. That builds a lot of trust. And we, and they know we believe in them and that gi and that gives them hope.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Yeah. And I mean, how fascinating to think that, you know, some of these folks are going to get out at some point and they're going to be parenting children.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
Most of them will get out and many of them do have children. Yeah. I, I need to share a story.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Great.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
So one of the first women we taught was, was quite young. Eventually she got out. We, it turned out to be a great leader, but she got out, got married, has two kids, I think they're five and six years old now. And, and Laurel is like her second mother. And one day she, she called Laurel and said, Laurel, can my husband bring the kids over and can you just, they be with you for the day? I just need time by myself. And Laurel, of course was thrilled and said, Yeah, absolutely. Well, what Laurel reported to me was when the kids were playing in her backyard, they were all af labeling each other.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Five and six years old, You're angry, you're mad. And she told me that story and we both just started being
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Exactly
Speaker 3 (08:44):
What we wanted to happen. Anna took the skills that we taught her, develop them, and now she's passing it on to her children.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Yes. That my point. Exactly. This is, this is the real deal. The, the ripple effect. It just goes on and on and on. And it, it's just, you know, when, when Bill and I started High Conflict Institute together in way back in 2008, uh, he came up with the slogan, you know, let's give people a chance to change. Right. And that's what this program does. And it's, it's, it's successful and it's the, it's the right formula.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Right. It works.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
It works. It's exciting. Cuz you know, as I, you probably don't know this about me, Doug, and Bill's probably tired of hearing me talk about it, but I like to pretend that I have a PhD in reality television, , I talk about it on a lot of episodes. Uh, I don't watch so much anymore, but I've watched a lot. And you see the trauma, you see, you know, across all of the different shows, um, whether they're, you know, real Housewives, um, living, you know, in in the highest income areas and having the luxury lifestyle to the shows where they do go into the prisons. And, and you, you see, there's this trauma behind it and this lack of skills. And, um, I, I recall watching the show, I think it's 60 days in where undercover people go into jails and, um, and, you know, kind of pretend to live this other life. And it's, it's just really fascinating to get this peak into how, uh, inmates are treated, I guess. And, and there are probably some who think, well, they deserve it, that they're there and, you know, and all that. But why not give them a chance to change?
Speaker 3 (10:18):
I tell my more conservative friends that, you know, we spend more money in California prisons than we spend on the entire university system.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
I said, Is that really the best use of our taxpayer dollars? You know, what if we could, what if we could think of, think through what our criminal justice system's really all about and instead of getting into a retribution mode, get into a transformation mode because the people that go through the Retributive system, which is our court system, I tell people murders are not born. They're bred.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
And we can, we can fix, we can't fix it all, but we can fix a lot of it. And that kind of falls on deaf ears because it, you don't get elected to being dog catcher or Clovis California unless you have a endorsement by the Deputy Sheriff's Association. Right. Even though dog catching has nothing to do with the criminal justice system. But it's just that politicians get elected on fear and the fear of crime and, and lock 'em up. And three strikes. You know, that's the interesting about, about the region I live in is it's the birthplace of the three strikes laws. And it's also the birthplace of the international restorative justice system movement both started in Fresno, California.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
It's kind of like a race, I think between punishment and transformation like you're saying. And, and it's like neck and neck. We know what to do. And what you've done really demonstrates it can done with the hardest people for the most damaged people. And yet the the media image is all about being tough guys.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
Well, think about it. I mean, the media, what I've learned, and I I you guys know this too, is that the media hates peace. They hate peace
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Making. It's boring. Boring. It's boring. Exactly.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
, there's, it doesn't increase the checking account at all.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
. That's, that's why there's not, there's no reality mediation shows.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Right.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Deviation kills conflict. There
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Was one, but it, it didn't, it didn't last two seasons. And because mediation and peace making and resolving conflict is private, slow and very boring to watch. There's not, And the idea is to keep the drama out of it . Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Right? And it works. And so, and it works. And, and if it works, then, then where's the show? Right.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
And so, so the media has no interest. We have turned down dozens of requests from Oprah producers to do something on Prism Peas, and we're not gonna do it because, um, they're gonna exploit it. And, and we, we don't want that exploitation.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
And I applaud you for that because I firmly believe it will grow without Oprah for being on Oprah. I mean, it, it will,
Speaker 3 (12:54):
Yeah. I'd rather have it grower organically and people learning about it than, than otherwise. And is, we're not, we know this is thing, our worries is gonna grow too fast over the next couple years. Right. We don't have the infrastructure to support it because we're, it's a small, you know, small nonprofit. So Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Oh, you're gonna have to get together with some business schools and get some, some interns and
Speaker 3 (13:16):
. We need money probably more than anything else.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Yeah. And grant writer . Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
But I think, you know, the, I we're working on our, our how we're gonna do this, our model, our business model for doing this. So we'll
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Figure it out. Yeah. That that's, that those are just another problem to be solved. And I'm sure it'll be solved really well.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
It's a good problem. But to Bill's point, and to your point, Megan, you know, we can train people. I don't care how incorrigible they are. If they want to learn, here's the key. They've gotta be motivated. Our people self-select into prison of peace. They do not, they're not forced into it. They, they, it's something that they have to do. And when we do our very first orientation, um, we try to scare them away because we only want the ones who are really feel drawn to it, who really, the whole idea of being a peacemaker something in it grabs them in their hearts and they're gonna stick through it. Cause it's a, it's a tough curriculum. We teach at the gradual level. We don't coddle and we're very strict about homework and people cheat. And we, we don't accept that. And they copy work. We don't accept that. We, we watch what we see it. Um, we don't let anything get past us.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
That's about setting limits and, and consequences
Speaker 3 (14:22):
And accountability. And that part of what, that's part of what we hear back is thank you for being so strict and accountable. It's the first time in my life anybody has ever held me accountable to anything.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Hmm. Do you use the word consequences at all? Or do you stick with accountability?
Speaker 3 (14:36):
Accountability. You have to be accountable to yourself.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
I like that.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
And we're gonna hold you to that because there's a ton of homework. I mean, we work their butts off.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Keep them busy. Well, Bill, Bill has that teaches that skill too about keeping people busy with tasks and keeping them thinking, right?
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Yeah. Cause feeling if you can drown in your feelings, but if you learn what to do and if you can acknowledge and give each other. So when we do empathy, attention, and respect, we give empathy for what we see their feeling. We, I hear frustration and I can hear your disappointment. Many years ago, I guess it was
Speaker 3 (15:13):
been
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Two decades that we, we ended up in the same place really about empathizing with what people are feeling. And That's right. It's different from opening up with they're feeling we're not, Oh, you know, Oh, you're so sad. Pour your heart out to me. Because that's where people drown instead of learning problem solving skills.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
Well, we know from the le all the Lieberman studies, there have been nine of them now, that, that when you reflect back what somebody else is feeling, you say something, Oh, you're really sad, you're upset, you know, you frustrated, you're anxious. When we label their emotions, that causes the transformation in the brain. And that's where, that's where the power is. And learning how to do that in the right way and learning how to watch for the physiological responses that occur un unconsciously and involuntarily is part of the skill of learning how to use these deescalation techniques.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
I'm inspired, I just,
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Yeah, great. I knew you would be Bill, As soon as I heard him talk about the prison program, I got excited. So Doug, what's the most gratifying part of being involved in this and, and having started it, and I mean, you, you guys took a hard path, but Bill and I took a really hard path as well, and it's funding thing, you know, the whole, everything yourselves and, and just working so hard in so many hours and barely making any money. But what is it inside you that is it, You know, you see that gratification?
Speaker 3 (16:42):
Well, it's getting the letters from, from our students who, and the thanks, the thank yous that we get, the gratitude that we get. Yeah. And watching people who have been basically thrown away by society and having them express gratitude at, at these basic skills and how they have been able to transform their lives and transform the lives of their relationships with their families. And when they get out, become extraordinarily successful people in their communities because they've got skills that nobody else has. Right. And, uh, you know, it's, and knowing that we're making a difference.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Absolutely. It's , it's fantastic. Um, so kind of, uh, switching a little even further into to you and your work, what, what drew you to this profession of peacemaking? And I I, I know there's gotta be a story here.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Yeah. Well, okay. I'll try to keep this as quick as I can, but it spans two, uh, it spans for almost five decades. Uh, so I, as I said before, I was, I grew up in San Marin. I was born in San Marina. Um, but unfortunately I was appoint with a lot of disabilities. I was born partially blind, two club feet, partially deaf, left-handed bad teeth. Um, a lot of problems. I turned 72 tomorrow, ah, happy birthday, early, really happy birthday. And in those days, my parents didn't know what to do with me, really. So essentially I developed arrogance to cover up at a very young age, I developed arrogance to cover up all of the wounding that I suffered. Of course you did. But the other thing that happened was that I have a, I have obviously have a very sharp mind, and so I was smart, arrogance and smart, ugh.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
And then thick in the fourth grade. Finally, somebody had the good sense to test my eyes, took 'em that long and found out that my vision was 2,400. And so they gave me coke glasses, right? Coke, Coke bottle lenses of big Oh right. Nerd nerd glasses before it was cool. It was a buzz kill for the girls. My social light growing up was horrible. But I jumped to grade levels in one summer, and ultimately I was, I I applied to and was accepted to Dartmouth College, studied English literature, Graduated well, honor is well, um, did well with distinction in English and came back to California. In those days, if you didn't go to med school, you went to law school. So I went to law school and without really intending to knowing whether I wanted to be a lawyer or not, I did well in law school, clerked for a judge for a year, and then ended up in private practice.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
And I tried, I joined the firm, my firm in September of 78, tried my first jury trial in November of 78. And my second jury trial was a defense of a 36 million security fraud case in San Diego in federal court. That's how my trial career started. I did that for the next 22 years. In the eighties, I picked up, and this is where the shift occurred, I picked up, I started studying martial arts when I was 34, 35 years old, and eventually was awarded my second degree black belt. And at that time, my teacher told me to go start studying Tai chi. And Tai Chi has two really interesting paradox. This is in 1990. So I just turned 40. Taichi has two really interesting paradoxes. The first is the softer you are, stronger you are, the more vulnerable you are, the more powerful you are soft to be strong vulner vulnerable, to be powerful.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
And this was completely opposite everything that I'd learned about how to survive. You had to be tough and strong and, you know, stoic and pushed through everything and life's a struggle. And taichi was completely the opposite. So as I studied taichi and began to understand it and began teaching taichi, I assimilated these paradoxes until one day I was in a courtroom and I cross, cross examining somebody. I thought to myself, What the heck am I doing in here? After that trial, I had a vacation planned, a river trip. So with a bunch of friends, we went up to loaded the main salmon Whitewater River. And I spent the week thinking about how many people I had really served as a trial over 22 plus years, and concluded that I'd really only served five people and decided that I didn't wanna do that. I didn't wanna go another 20 or 30 years and serve maybe 15 people.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
People really came out of the system better off than going in. So interestingly, when I got back from that vacation, I was driving down out of the mountains to my office and I heard what turned out to be the one and only public service announcement for a new master's degree in peacemaking and conflict studies being offered at Fresno Pacific University. And to make a very long story short, I enrolled and was accepted. And for three years in the late nineties, I was a full-time master's degree, , a three quarters time law professor, and a full-time trial wear . It was just a little bit crazy. Uh, and my partners and I began to have discussions about what I was gonna do with all of this. And I knew I didn't wanna try cases. I said, I'll try cases while I'm studying, but when I'm done with my master's degree, I'm not gonna try any more cases.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
And they hated that because I was the la second largest money owner in the firm. So finally in 2000, October of 2000 here, this is October of 20 22, 22 years ago, almost, not quite to the date, 2020, it was the end of October. The managing partner of the firm who was my here, we both graduated from law school the same year, uh, came into my office, said, You're not getting any more paychecks until you stop this peacemaking shit . And I said, Oh, is that stuff? And that was on a Friday. I went home with my married to my first wife at the time, and we kind of talked about it. And I came back in at eight o'clock on Monday morning and I said, I quit. Here is, I don't want any more paychecks. Here's my credit cards and my keys, my everything. And that Friday I left, I left 10 million bucks on the table, and on November 1st started my mediation and peacemaking making practice. I did it. And it took, wasn't like you could flip a switch from a trial lawyer to a peacemaker. You know, you, it took, it was a huge growth process that I had to go through. And it took, took a long time to go through that growth process. But it, you know, and the Prison of Peace project, I think was a, a big part of that.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
And I help more people today in a week than I helped in 22 years as a little trial lawyer.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
So that answers the final question, you know, what is what, you know, what gives you the greatest satisfaction? I mean, and that's, that's it. You're serving so many
Speaker 3 (23:04):
People. The meaning of life to me is serving humanity. And, and, and I tell people, you don't have to be a Mother Teresa. You don't even have to be a Doug all, I mean, people pull me up and say, Wow, what a great thing prison Peace is. Yeah, it's a good project. It's my legacy. But you don't have to do anything that like that. All you have to do is learn how to listen people into existence. And every time you listen to someone into existence, you throw a little pebble into the pond of peace and it's spreads out of ripple. And the more people throwing pebbles into that part of peace, the larger the pond becomes. Yeah. Until eventually we have peace all around us. And so you can make a huge difference and create meaning in your life just by how you behave around people and listing them into existence every single
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Day. I just think it's great that you've taken the skills you've learned along the way to really help so many people. So congratulations. Congratulations. Well,
Speaker 1 (23:56):
Thank you. Well, Doug, this has just been fascinating. Uh, like Bill said, uh, your, your work is just tremendous. It's fascinating. It's, it's so helpful. And, uh, we just wanna thank you, you know, for the work that you do to bring hope to people who need it the most and the ripple effect that it has on society and communities and individuals. And as you mentioned, this will have a ripple effect when, um, inmates who are released can go out and parent their children, um, and teach the teach, teach them these skills. So it's very exciting to me. So thank you again. Thank
Speaker 2 (24:34):
You.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
You'll
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Find a link to the show notes to Doug's website and, uh, Prison of Peace, uh, in, in those show notes and also links to his books will be there as well. So we are very grateful to have had Doug with us and next week we'll be talking more high conflict. In the meantime, please send your questions to podcast high conflict institute.com or submit them to high conflict institute.com/podcast and please tell all your friends about us and we'd be grateful if you'd leave a review wherever you listen to our podcast. Until next week, have a great week and keep learning about high conflict behavior and practice all the skills so you can help everyone find the missing piece. It's All Your Fault is a production of True Story FM Engineering by Andy Nelson. Music, by Wolf Samuels, John Coggins, and zip Moran. Find the show, show notes and transcripts@truestory.fm for high conflict institute.com/podcast. If your podcast app allows ratings and reviews, please consider doing that for our show.