“I’m kind of an ambivert.”
Sure. And do you write the same with both hands?
Introvert × extravert is the best known piece of personality typology and at the same time the worst understood. Nobody wants to be an introvert these days, because supposedly it means a loser who sits at home. And nobody wants to be an extravert, because supposedly it means a shallow loudmouth. So everyone says they’re “somewhere in between”. Except the whole thing rests on one misunderstanding: this letter isn’t about character at all.
What it’s really about: energy, every day
Introvert × extravert answers a single question: what you top your energy up with, on a day-to-day basis. Nothing more. It doesn’t say whether you like people, whether you can speak in front of an audience, or whether you’re fun at a party. I know introverts who speak brilliantly to hundreds of people, and extraverts who love books.
Imagine you have a container of energy in you, something like a tank in a car or an account at a bank. During the day you draw from it. And now the essential question: what fills it back up?
An introvert recharges by switching off outside stimulation. He needs a few hours a day alone in his own head: a book, a walk, silence, his own project. He enjoys people, but they take his energy, even the ones he loves. An extravert recharges from people and from exchange. A day on his own drains him more than a party does. He needs contact, conversation, action, that’s where his tank fills up.
And why does it matter? Because you can run on reserve for a while. Some people run like that for years: an introvert in an open-plan office full of people, an extravert on maternity leave alone at home. It can be managed. Only then one day the engine starts smoking and you don’t know why, because “you’re not doing anything hard”.
How to spot it
More of an introvert
Recharges on their own, drains among people.
- After a whole day with people they’re glad to be alone, even if it was great
- Thinks quietly inside and says only part of it out loud
- A deep conversation between two > small talk among ten
- Gets their best ideas on their own
- An unannounced phone call = a small ambush
More of an extravert
Recharges among people, drains on their own.
- After a day on their own they’re restless and need to see someone
- Thinks out loud, only puts the thought together by talking
- The energy of a group charges them, the more people the better
- Gets their best ideas in conversation
- Silence between two makes them uneasy, so they fill it
Why we find each other odd
The difference goes deeper than energy. An introvert works in the order think → speak → think. He sorts the thing out inside first and then says out loud maybe twenty or thirty per cent of what went on in his head. The extravert has it the other way round: speak → think → speak. To be able to think about something, he needs to talk about it. The thought is born in his mouth.
And now put them in one meeting. The extravert pours out half-finished thoughts and expects the others to do the same. The introvert stays quiet, because he’s processing, and speaks up when he has it finished. Meanwhile the extravert thinks he has nothing, or that he isn’t interested. And the introvert thinks the extravert is talking nonsense. Yet both are just running on a different operating system.
Same at home. The extravert comes home from work and needs to talk the day out, that’s how he digests it. The introvert comes home from work and needs half an hour of silence before he’s even able to speak. When they don’t know this about each other, one feels rejected and the other overwhelmed. When they do know, a small thing is enough: “give me twenty minutes and I’m yours”.
But I really do have both!
You do. We all have an introvert and an extravert in us, just as we all have both hands. Even a die-hard introvert needs to charge his extravert batteries now and then, go out among people, feel the energy of a group. And even the biggest extravert, after twelve hours with people, needs to close the door behind him and run a bath. All of this is true and none of it makes you an ambivert.
Because the question isn’t whether you can do both. You can, just as you can write with your left hand too. The question is, what your nature is, the one your body returns to on its own. What recharges you reliably, every day, without forcing it. In that, people usually are one or the other. And knowing which is practically useful information: it tells you how to build your day, your work, your weekend and your relationship so you stop mysteriously running yourself down.
By the way, that’s exactly why nobody wants to be “put in a box”: both boxes, as people imagine them, have flaws. But the box is a caricature. The real answer isn’t “you’re a loser” or “you’re a loudmouth”, it’s “this is how you recharge”. And nobody has to be ashamed of that.
What to do about it, in practice
Do an energy audit
Take an ordinary day and go through it in the evening: what gave me energy today and what took it? Do it for three days. The pattern you’ll see will tell you more about your letter than any test.
Schedule recharging like a meeting
Introvert, put your silence into the day for good, even just half an hour, and defend it. Extravert, put people into the day for good, lunch with someone, a call with a friend. It isn’t a reward for getting everything done. It’s the fuel without which you’ll get nothing done.
Tell your people how it works for you
The sentence “I need twenty minutes of silence after work, then I’m all yours” or “I need to chew this over out loud with you, don’t look for finished opinions in it” saves a relationship hundreds of small injuries. Because the other person won’t see it on their own, their head doesn’t work that way.
Stop blaming yourself for how you were born
An introvert who tells himself off for leaving a party at ten, and an extravert who feels shallow because he can’t stand being alone, are making the same mistake: measuring themselves with the other one’s ruler. Your setting isn’t a fault and you won’t change it. You can only know it and play with it, not against it.
Respect other people’s batteries
Do you have an introvert child at home and drag them out among people every weekend? Do you manage an extravert and sit her in home office? None of that is ill will, just blindness to someone else’s tank. The moment you see it, a lot of the “problem behaviour” around you starts to make sense.
Does this sound familiar?
Tick what fits you:
The first two = more of an introvert, the next two = more of an extravert, the last two = the reason to deal with all this. If you want to see your whole picture, not just this one letter, take the test.
If you’ve been running out of juice for a while
Exhaustion rarely comes from the work itself. More often from the day being built against your setting. In a session we’ll go through what your day looks like and where your energy really leaks out. The intro session is free and commits you to nothing.
Talk about where my energy leaks →