A Letter/Manifesto From The Author

I discovered this thing called Nonviolent Communication (NVC) in my early 20's, about 35 years ago, and was instantly hooked because I saw how powerful it was for talking about and healing from conflict. I put it to use to heal and deepen connections in many of my own relationships, and considered dedicating my life to sharing NVC at a young age.

Instead, I went in a different direction.

In 1993, at the age of 22, I started the world's first web-development and hosting company that used databases and programming in the background. I spent the next 25 years building and growing web-based software companies that pushed the boundaries of technology, and created a few new software categories along the way.

During those years, I still had plenty of opportunities to apply what I learned from NVC and other modalities, and would frequently help others with conflict, but it was not until my late 40's that I switched gears to become a NVC-mediator and certified relationship coach.

At that point in my life, I had some lingering bitterness from some very expensive and painful life-lessons, so I jumped headlong and full-time into these new practices to give myself some healing. As a result, I was fortunate to receive years of advanced training with some of the most influential trainers from around the world, including two of the top NVC mediator trainers, one of which I trained with for three years.

But, over time, I noticed three trends that worried me:

• I learned that very few people were successfully making a living sharing this gift of NVC. With my background in sales and marketing, I was doing well enough, but I was watching my peers struggle to get clients.

• Much more concerning, I kept seeing people seemingly forget their training when conflict came up, including trainers who had dedicated decades of their life to NVC. Sometimes, instead of responding with empathy, I saw them react with judgement, blame, and stating interpretations as fact, all things we avoid in NVC, as they escalate conflict and reduce connection.
  
  I also noticed that I could sometimes fall into some of those same traps, most easily with the people closest to me, who mattered the most, even after four years of full-time training and practice. Intellectually, we know what to do, and we can apply it when we're grounded. But, in many other moments, we can easily go into reaction and revert to old and unhelpful habits.

  
  

• I kept seeing how the empathy-based mediation process would feel amazing and be startlingly effective, reconnecting people and solving problems, often in a handful of sessions. But when the next conflict happened, old habits would reemerge, and people felt worse than when they started.

These realizations led to a real crisis of faith for me. I kept asking myself, if those of us with that much training cannot reliably live by our NVC values during conflict, how can it truly benefit people who have not dedicated years to practice?

That question is what led to Conflict Fixed...

When I began this new chapter of my life, I had a terrific plan to retire from tech, stop leading big projects, and live a nice simple life. I would just work with a handful of clients a week and relax more.

But, now I had these new problems to solve, which really fired up my creativity!

I spent a year pondering and planning...

• How can these skills be easier to learn and use?

• How can the community grow massively, so more people live by the connecting values of NVC?

• How can those in the community, who long to share their skills, financially thrive doing it?

And now, another couple of years of work later, here's what I came up with:

1) Easily learning and using these skills:

• When we have no structure to follow, it seems to me that we are much more likely to fall into our habits. Conversely, when we have a step-by-step structure, it appears to be much easier to slow down and have connecting conversations that lead to understanding, healing, and solutions that get everyone's needs met.
  
  In my practice, I have seen that with structure, nearly anyone can connect with the principles of NVC and resolve conflicts, even without any previous training whatsoever. And, when we combine NVC mediation (to facilitate connection, healing, and solutions), with relationship coaching (to facilitate developing our vision and action plans to achieve the relationship we want), we get healing and relationships that are very sustainable and fulfilling.

• The Conflict Fixed book, app, optional card deck, and optional logbooks, provide structure to stop conflict, and to prepare for and have difficult conversations. It is all based on my years of training in NVC mediation and relationship coaching, plus my experience and experiments with different methods over the last 35 years.
  
  The digital book is available in the app, with logbooks and exercises built in. The app also has an optional AI chat, trained on the framework, which you can subscribe to for instant answers to your questions. Conflict Fixed will soon also host a weekly free practice workshop to help everyone start using the framework, and offer a free community to search for practice partners and empathy buddies, and ask questions.

2) Growing the community:

• In my years in tech, I learned a lot about marketing, leading to speaking at several marketing conferences and being a partial owner of a business coaching group. The trend I have seen in the NVC community doesn't follow what I consider to be best practices. NVC trainers typically promote NVC training programs, which attract people who are already sold on NVC. That is a relatively tiny community for a growing number of trainers to find students in.

• Instead, I'm marketing Conflict Fixed to people who just want to stop the repetitive fights they are having with the people closest to them, solve their problems, and live in peace. I'm also using a low-ticket funnel, selling the digital book for under $5, to bring as many people in as possible, while ensuring that the marketing is sustainable with helpful add-ons like the deck and a group coaching program.

3) Financially thriving while sharing these skills:

• While everything included in the Conflict Fixed kit and workshops can help a lot of people resolve conflict without additional intervention, many topics will benefit from immediate one-on-one support, either because they are too difficult or activating to ever talk about without guidance, or because the people involved want it solved before they have practiced enough on easier topics.

• These people will be referred to a not-for-profit organization I founded, called Harmonic Mediation Society (HMS) to offer this level of support at scale.
  
  To provide effective help, HMS will soon be offering three levels of training and certification programs, with practicums. Level one certified people can offer HMS clients professional empathy support and coaching to help them find strategies to meet needs. Level two can help people prepare for and role-play difficult conversations. Level three can hold space and facilitate difficult conversations as HMS mediators.
  
  These programs will be open to anyone, without prerequisites, with fast-track programs for people with previous training in NVC or NVC-based mediation. If you are inspired to have a new career, please join us.

• The vision is that HMS will take care of all the marketing (through a partnership with Conflict Fixed, other partnerships, and other initiatives), as well as all the tech, billing, and other overhead that can be barriers for many NVC practitioners and coaches, making it difficult for them to financially thrive. If all goes according to plan, those certified by HMS will be able to work with as many clients as they can handle, just focusing on helping people, doing what they love, and using their skills to contribute to social change.

  
  

• Additionally, HMS will eventually offer frequent workshops to the Conflict Fixed community and HMS clients, where NVC trainers and trainer candidates, along with other experts, can get exposure to large numbers of new faces interested in these topics. This will give NVC trainer candidates opportunities to practice teaching with beginners, and give certified trainers and others opportunities to grow their audience.

Today, as I write this letter, I'm preparing the last of the production details to do a first small print-run of the books and decks, and there are still a few weeks of other work to finish the app and web site, before I announce the app and book.

Initial growth will be gradual and hopefully steady, starting by sharing it with the NVC and coaching communities I'm part of, and then slowly testing ads once I have some initial feedback, testimonials, and case-studies. Once the ads and landing pages are dialled in, the marketing will pay for itself to grow. That way, it can keep bringing in more and more new people, every single day, helping them solve their immediate pain.

And, they will just happen to learn NVC and coaching principles along the way.

I am also planning a cross-Canada book tour, travelling with my partner and going to community centres, libraries, and other organizations to do free workshops in most provinces. In addition to spreading the skills, this will help hone my messaging. And book and deck sales at the events will help increase my advertising budget.

I'm thankful for all the people who helped me get to this stage, and excited about what I am about to offer to the world. But this is not about me. I'm building everything with the vision for it to outlast my time here on this earth, helping people for generations to come. I see it continually growing, with more and more people trained to do these workshops, mediate conflict, and bring more peace and understanding into the world.

My end-goal is to have enough people touched by this that we reach a tipping point, where many people start advocating for these skills to be taught in schools around the world, with the same ongoing importance as reading and writing. We are affected by conflict on a regular basis. What do you think life could be like if a generation of children was raised knowing how to navigate it with empathy?

That is a future I am happy to be investing in.

Choosing to read the book is the next step to building it.

With heartfelt thanks for your time,

John Reel

Friday, March 27, 2026