Oakland, Calif., Oct. 30, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- John Ford & Associates has released Tracking Triggers: From Reactivity to Responsiveness, a new book by workplace mediator John Ford, who has spent more than thirty years helping other people resolve their conflicts. The book begins the night Ford resolved one of his own conflicts and still couldn’t sleep. Published October 8, 2026, it became a #1 Amazon Bestseller in Arbitration, Negotiation & Mediation and a #1 New Release in Anger Management.

On the eve of a trip, a neighbor cut back the branches on Ford’s side of the fence without asking. Ford did everything he teaches. He noticed the reaction, breathed, waited until he was calm, and had a good conversation that ended with an apology. At three in the morning, he was still awake.

“I had done everything right, and I still could not sleep,” said Ford. “That is the part of a conflict a good conversation never touches, and it is where this book begins. What kept me awake was older than the branches.”

Ford explains that being triggered draws on more than the moment. He identifies three interacting elements: the trigger itself, the body’s state, and an emotional archive of earlier experiences the trigger stirs. That is how a small remark can land with the weight of years. Once readers learn to follow that thread, they can attend to what the remark stirred, and the same remark may begin to land differently.

Ford first saw this skill in the Kalahari. In 1999, he traveled to the Nyae Nyae Conservancy in Namibia to facilitate a conflict resolution workshop with the San people. There, he watched a tracker named Thomas follow a gemsbok across open ground, reading signals Ford couldn’t see. “Tracking is not about catching. It is about listening,” Ford writes. Just as a tracker reads faint signs in the sand, readers learn to notice the sensations, feelings, needs, and familiar stories that arrive when they are triggered.

The book turns that attention into a practice Ford calls the Fifth Way: not fighting, fleeing, freezing, or fawning, but meeting the moment with presence. Its first three movements are foundational. Recognize shortens the first of two gaps Ford describes: the time between being triggered and noticing it. Regulate restores composure and widens the second gap: the space between noticing and responding, where choice becomes possible. Name brings a person into the present to discover what they are actually feeling and needing right now. Naming alone often eases the charge.

From that presence, the path divides. Feel and Act Anew leads inward, toward the protective feelings and needs carried from the past that a trigger awakens. Respond leads outward, toward meeting the people involved with awareness and choice, including saying no, setting boundaries, and saying the hard thing without blame. Readers still get triggered after the last page. The difference is that they know what to do with it.

“Regulation is everywhere right now, and we do need it. We have to calm down and return to center before we can respond well,” Ford said. “But calming down doesn’t resolve what keeps setting us off. If all we ever do is regulate, we end up swallowing what we need to say, and we never learn why the charge was there in the first place.”

Tracking Triggers is written for anyone who has replayed a conversation at three in the morning, including leaders, managers, and professionals whose work depends on difficult conversations. With the holidays approaching, it also speaks to the family conversations many people are already dreading. Later chapters cover listening so well that the other person feels heard, assertion without aggression, and what forgiveness does and does not require.

Tracking Triggers: From Reactivity to Responsiveness is available now on Amazon in paperback, hardcover, and Kindle editions: www.amazon.com/dp/0990335585

Learn more about the book at www.trackingtriggers.com.

Questions Ford can answer

The button-pusher. After years of personal growth work, why can one person still push your buttons?

The first thirty seconds. What can you do in the first thirty seconds of a heated conversation to give yourself a real choice about what happens next?

Old hurt or real line? How can you tell whether you’re reacting to an old hurt, to someone crossing a boundary right now, or to both?

Calm or swallowed? What’s the difference between staying calm and swallowing your feelings to keep the peace?

After the angry email. If you’ve already snapped, shut down, or hit send, can you still repair the conversation?

Review copies are available on request.

About John Ford & Associates

John Ford & Associates helps organizations manage inevitable workplace conflict competently, so that time and money are saved and there is peace at work. The firm mediates workplace disputes, trains HR professionals to mediate in-house, coaches employees on how best to deal with conflict, and builds conflict management competence through training across corporate, government, healthcare, and academic settings. Its work is grounded in the practice of John Ford, a workplace mediator, conflict resolution trainer, and coach with more than thirty years of experience who teaches mediation and negotiation each year at UC Law San Francisco. John Ford & Associates is the publisher of Tracking Triggers: From Reactivity to Responsiveness. Ford is also the author of Peace at Work: The HR Manager's Guide to Workplace Mediation and the creator of The Empathy Set®.

Press Inquiries

John Ford
john [at] johnford.com
510-301-9095
https://www.trackingtriggers.com