How do you support your colleagues and employees to navigate change? When you feel stuck yourself and can’t see a way out, how do you deal with challenging times? Amy Jimison walks us through her approach when facing hard times, showing that practicing optimism is key in moments of uncertainty.

An EQ Journey through Empathy & Optimism:
Key Learnings from Leadership and Coaching Expert
Amy Jimison – Voices from the Network

by Maddalena Campitelli

“Emotional intelligence (EQ) gave me a wider perspective of possibilities. It gave me the tools to think about and see things in a different way – realizing that there is always a solution or alternative even if we don’t see it right away.” – Amy Jimison

In this month’s Voices from the Network, we sit down with Amy Jimison, an expert in leadership, coaching and employee skill development based in Ohio, USA. Amy’s noble goal is to create positive momentum for myself and others.

Amy discovers Emotional Intelligence

When Amy Jimison first came across the concept of emotional intelligence as a learning and development professional, it piqued her interest immediately. “This is the piece I have been missing in my own personal and professional development,” she recounts thinking.

“I didn’t use to think of myself as an empathetic person,” Amy says. “That’s one of the first areas in emotional intelligence that I really worked on.” In her interactions, she says she used to really struggle to pause and think about what the other person was experiencing, and she had to work hard to be able to change her narrative from a detached sympathy to real empathy and connection. She recalls an EQ training session held at her employer at the time “I worked on it and really put it into practice,” Amy recalls. And I’ll never forget a few months after one of the first trainings when my boss at the time referred to me as ‘the most empathetic person she knew.’ I was shocked. That’s also when I realized, ‘This EQ stuff really works!’”. Where she noticed the most improvement occurred was in the particularly challenging relationships with the people at work who were reporting to her at the time. As they increasingly felt Amy listening to them more accurately and carefully, they developed a more trusting relationship. The dynamic changed completely.

And the benefits weren’t only in the professional realm. Amy’s new approach to empathy and connection also helped transform her relationship with her teenage daughter. The biggest shift involved asking her daughter more questions and responding with empathy – not trying to solve things for her at all costs. While as a parent it’s automatic to think “let me fix it for you, do this..” Amy managed to shift to “Tell me more about that, ah that’s really frustrating, what else happened, what might you do from here…”. This coach approach made them allies and made the relationship more open and caring. Amy managed to build her trust and a stronger connection which is continuing now as she grows older: “She trusts me and she knows that I’m looking out for her and would support her no matter what.”

The next level in Amy’s emotional intelligence journey came about as the result of one of her greatest emotional challenges of her life: losing her job.

Amy finds Six Seconds during dark times

In 2018, Amy suddenly got laid off and found herself in a situation she had never been in. She struggled to find a way out, but started looking around for opportunities to connect with a meaningful community and to help others. That brought her positivity back: “It was just the right time for Six Seconds to pop up in my life and it really helped ground me.”

She began volunteering for a non-profit which connected her with Spirit of EQ -with whom she is now a Strategic Partner- a coaching and consulting company based in Ohio, USA and Six Seconds Preferred Partner that assists individuals and businesses to reach their full potential by developing emotional and spiritual intelligence. Through Spirit of EQ, Amy started doing facilitation on professional development and because of that, she was able to sit in on some of the sessions they were doing and she got to know the Six Seconds’ model. She felt inspired immediately: “It’s simple, but it’s not, right? You realize once you get into it that it’s more complex than it seems, but on the surface it is much more actionable in the sense that I can see right away how to apply things in my day-to-day life, in my work, in everything I do. It felt much more relevant to me than any EQ methodology I had encountered before.”

Amy took the SEI assessment first; and something clicked for her, and she realized that EQ was something she could infuse more deeply and widely in different aspects of her life. So she did Unlocking EQ, then moved to the EQ Practitioner, and Assessor, and ended up completing all courses through Advanced Facilitator.

“Emotional Intelligence gave me a wider perspective of possibilities, it gave me the tools to think about and see things in a different way realizing that there is always a solution or alternative, even if we don’t see it right away. I also learned that whatever you go through, it is temporary, and it’s affecting only a part of my life but it doesn’t define who I am, and I’ll get through it and I’ll be okay. It’s a healthy, non-toxic type of optimism that builds real resilience.”

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Meet Amy Jimison LinkedIn →

Professional achievements: Amy Jimison discovered her passion for learning and development over 20 years ago. Her areas of expertise are in leadership, coaching and employee skill development. Amy’s career has included facilitation, management of a facilitation team, instructional design and consulting with business leaders on needs. She is focused on increasing employee engagement and retention through building relationships and coaching both individuals and teams. Amy focuses on creating positive momentum for herself and others to become their authentic selves.
Amy has paired her expertise in learning and development with emotional intelligence to bring new depths to her interactions. She is also a certified EQ Assessor, EQ Facilitator and SEQ Assessor through Six Seconds, bringing that lens to effective workshop design and facilitation. Amy is a John Maxwell Team member, Certified EQ Practitioner, Assessor and Facilitator, a strategic partner with Spirit of EQ, volunteer facilitator for Jewish Family Services and Leadership Columbus, and a docent at the Columbus Zoo & Aquarium. She lives in Columbus, OH with her daughter and their three dogs.

Favorite Six Seconds Learning Philosophy: “Wisdom lives within”. I truly believe that there is so much within each of us and at times we need to trust ourselves and instincts. And, as a practitioner & assessor, I use this to remember to ask questions to discover what is within myself and others.

Learn about Six Seconds Learning Philosophy →

Noble Goal: “Creating positive momentum for myself and others.”

Learn about Six Seconds Noble Goals →  

Her “Don’t Miss This” Six Seconds tools & courses: Exercising Optimism is a favorite tool of mine. In time of stress and pressure, it is so helpful to remind myself to answer these three questions and know that in the end, I will be okay, we all will be:
How long will the problem last? Optimistic: It may take a while, but it is not forever.
How widespread is the problem? Optimistic: This doesn’t affect my whole life, it is only this part.
How much effort will it take? Optimistic: It may be hard, and I can put my effort where it will make a difference.
As for courses, the EQ Practitioner course helped me discover so much about myself and changed me in so many ways. This experience helped me in bringing EQ to others, as I could talk about my personal experiences and make it real for others.

“Making peace with change”

Because of her background and experiences, Amy no longer fears change and can even support others to navigate it more effectively. She chooses to focus on the fact that change is going to happen and even if often it doesn’t feel great and it’s hard, it’s temporary. As both her previous and current company have gone through changes and restructurings, her team members come to her for advice because of how she uses emotional intelligence tools to both stay optimistic and accept what is going on around her.

“It is not just saying ‘everything is going to be ok’,” Amy stresses. “It’s about understanding where you are at and what you can do, what your options really are and what you can change.” Exercising optimism like this requires practice but eventually it saves up a lot of energy that otherwise would negatively impact one’s mental health and wellbeing over the long-term.

Amy always comes back to these 3 principles of optimism:
How long will the problem last? Optimistic: It may take a while, but it is not forever.
How widespread is the problem? Optimistic: This doesn’t affect my whole life, it is only this part.
How much effort will it take? Optimistic: It may be hard, and I can put my effort where it will make a difference.
<Learn more about the competency of Exercise Optimism>.

Thank you Amy for sharing your EQ journey with us!

This is the web version of Six Seconds’ Voices from the Network newsletter. To subscribe to this and other newsletters from Six Seconds, click here.

If you would like to share your story and be featured in future newsletters please email [email protected]

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Want more resources on how to navigate change through optimism?

Strengthen Your Growth Mindset with Optimism
Coaching Optimism & Purpose: 3 Profound Questions to Fuel Energy for a Better Future
The Work of Optimism: Creating perspective in challenging times [Optimism technique]
The Inside Path to Change Management
Emotions and Change: How are you feeling in the middle of change?
Why change efforts fail. And how to use emotional intelligence to make them more successful