Recently, I was interviewed by Sheya Michaelides for her August 12, 2025 Article on Ambiverts on the online magazine, Allwork.Space | FUTURE OF WORK®. So many things I didn’t know about ambiversion, even though I live within the experience every day. The term was coined in the 1920s, but few people have ever heard of it before. You can read her full article here.
However, there are so many of us out there that we could change the tide of Introversion/Extroversion narratives if we could just figure out how many of us there really are in our world and learn how to work better with one another.
I always thought of myself as an introvert. My first Myers-Briggs Type Indicator assessment (MBTI) told me I was about 5 pts. into the Introversion side of the assessment, but later, when I became a facilitator myself and had to take the MBTI over again, I was about 5 pts. into the Extroversion side. How could this be? So, who was I really??? I’d grown comfy with my INFP designation.
In between the times of taking the MBTI, I had told a fellow coworker that I was an introvert, but he begged to differ, which was interesting to me.
“There’s absolutely no way that you’re introverted! Not how I saw you interact with our Japanese partners at Surly Brewing!” he shook his head, “No, I can pretty much state categorically that you’re more extroverted than you think you are.” I was stumped!
But then thinking about things, I could see in myself little tell-tale signs that there was more to me than how I have to recharge:
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In a 9th-grade Social Studies class, I found I could make people laugh, outloud! Laugh WITH me, not AT me. We had to do so many presentations in that class, that I was petrified of the process. But after I found out that I could make people laugh, that started a whole new world of crazy things that I did in that class where I’d broken my own glass ceiling. This included having a fellow student participate in an “egg shampoo” where I crushed raw eggs on top of his head and messed it up a bunch, to the roar of my 9th grade crowd. (We did eventually give him a “real” shampooing.)
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I can sing (or at least I could years ago) in front of 400+ people, 3 times a weekend, plus solos and duets (3×400 = 1,200 for one weekend!) for 7 years. I was at home on any stage – just give me a mic and I’m gone.
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I love to teach others! It’s what I’m wired for. Teaching concepts and watching the dawning light in others’ eyes as they make the teachings their own.
But I also have times I need to lay low.
Recharging = a hot cup of tea in a very small room, hopefully with no windows. Or my offices. Or a stairwell with or without windows. Or an exercise room that no one is using.
So, read the article to figure out if you might be a part of this unusual club of people – might you have some of the same traits? Join me in embracing the beauty of being a little of “both.”
We need people who can straddle both introverted and extroverted ways of being. But at the very least, you’ll understand how a person on your team could be both while lending their goodness to your work together or in meetings.
I’m just grateful we can work together well when we’ve seen each other for who we really are at our cores.