109 Introverts, Extroverts And The Balance of Ambiversion with Ashley Griffiths | Ways to improve your confidence

In this episode, Ricky Locke interviews Ashley Griffiths, a video expert and NLP practitioner. They discuss Ashley's struggle with being an ambivert, finding balance between introversion and extroversion, and the power of silence. They also explore the strengths of introverts and the importance of embracing growth and change. Ashley shares his journey of self-discovery and offers insights into how to connect with him.

Takeaways

• Being an ambivert means having both introverted and extroverted qualities.
• Introverts can be excellent public speakers and have their own unique strengths.
• Silence is powerful and allows for deeper processing and understanding.
• Finding the balance between introversion and extroversion is an ongoing process.
• Embracing growth and change is essential for personal development.

Chapters

01:06 Introduction and Background

2:06 Discovering Ambiversion

034:18 Balancing Introversion and Extroversion

06:55 The Power of Silence

09:08 The Strengths of Introverts

10:41 Struggling with Finding Balance

13:06 Embracing Growth and Change

15:18 How to Connect with Ashley

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Ricky Locke (00:00.987)

Hey, welcome to another episode of the mini series of the Unlocked conversation cards with the Diary of a CEO conversation cards. Today, I am joined with my good friend Ashley Griffiths. Hello, mate. How's it going?

Ash (00:14.158)

It's going fabulous. How about yourself Mike?

Ricky Locke (00:16.763)

Always fabulous, especially talking to another podcaster and video superstar media expert. My long list of words for you there, but yes, tell us a little bit about you and what is it that you do?

Ash (00:31.054)

Well, I quite like your intro actually. So, right. So what is it I do? Ultimately, I work with clients to get them out of their heads and out into the world. So dropping all the shoulds, all the musts, have to's, I need to be a guru, I need to sing, I need to dance. And I help them focus on who they are.

what they're all about and then getting that across via video and out into the world so they can market their business and start attracting more of the sort of clients that light them up.

Ricky Locke (01:06.427)

I like that. Very nice. Very nice. Well, I'm looking forward to this one. So obviously we met through the wonderful van der Voel, sorry, I should say the van der Voel, Vaga, van der Voel, and through NLP because we're both NLP practitioners. So this will be a very interesting conversation. Are you ready for your question, Ashley?

Ash (01:16.972)

Yep.

Yes, we are in date.

Ash (01:25.71)

Oh, I'm a little bit nervous, but let's do it. Let's do it.

Ricky Locke (01:28.219)

All right. Here we go. So your question is, what is the unobvious thing that you struggle with?

Ash (01:38.7)

Oh my life.

Ricky Locke (01:39.195)

What is the unobvious thing that you struggle with?

Ash (01:42.702)

The unobvious thing I struggle with.

Ricky Locke (01:45.083)

Yeah.

Ricky Locke (01:48.571)

Deep question that one.

Ash (01:48.782)

Okay. I suppose. Yeah. I think actually, I think the people are often surprised. Anyone who's met me, anyone who's been in a room with me, anyone who's seen my videos are often surprised to find out that I'm not a natural extrovert. I'm actually quite shy. Um, I recently discovered, well, recently, probably less two years ago that I'm an ambivert.

Ricky Locke (02:10.243)

Oh.

Ricky Locke (02:18.829)

Oh, okay. And just for clarity for listeners, what does that mean?

Ash (02:19.278)

So there are time.

So I have both strong introverted and extroverted qualities. So that's why when you see me on video, if you see me in front of a class or a workshop, I'm bouncing around, I'm confident, I'm talking to everybody and all of that. But what you don't see is the next day I don't talk to anyone. Okay. So I need that space, but I also need.

Ricky Locke (02:29.659)

Okay.

Ash (02:50.606)

that environment where I can be social, where I can be around people, where I can be that center of attention and loud and bouncing around. Um, and I was just thinking about this yesterday actually, cause on Monday, um, one of my other hats that I wear is I work with kids that don't go to school. And Monday's quite a people -y day. So I'm talking to people from half nine in the morning.

Ricky Locke (03:18.715)

you

Ash (03:19.566)

all the way through until, yeah, seven o 'clock at night. And then on Tuesday, you're lucky if you get a word out of me until about four o 'clock in the afternoon. I literally just sit in a kind of daze until around lunchtime. And then I'm like, suppose I should probably talk to people again now.

Ricky Locke (03:40.275)

Nice, yeah. So interesting then. So where do you think that comes from then?

Ash (03:47.118)

What the ambivalent, I think I've always been quite insular in nature. I was always quite shy, but I was always fascinated with people. Always. And I liked observing and I liked sitting and I was often thinking, I'm not going to say anything unless I've actually got something worth saying. Um, so I, especially at school, I'd often sit, watch, and then whenever I was ready, I would pipe up. Um.

But yeah, I was, I was very shy as a child. Very shy. Um, the work that I do now, all the public speaking I've done, if you'd have said that even to my teenage, possibly even to my 20 year old self, that I would be doing that, I'd have been like, shut up. There is no way I'm doing that in front of all those people. Nah, thanks. It was too, it was too high stakes. Um, so I think there was probably a self -esteem. Um,

issue there for sure. Um, but over time, I think it just changes. I think you, I think one of the common misconceptions as well regarding that regarding introversion, extroversion, ambiversion, whatever is that to be a good public speaker, you need to be an extrovert. I think that's, that's some of the best public speakers in the world have been introverts. Um, so I think it's.

Ricky Locke (05:04.539)

Yeah.

Ricky Locke (05:10.043)

Yes.

Ash (05:13.582)

And also I think sometimes, you know, we live in a world that's determined to make everything binary. And it's just not that simple. I think we can flip between the two quite comfortably. I know I do.

Ricky Locke (05:19.161)

Yeah.

Ricky Locke (05:23.131)

Yeah. Yeah.

Ricky Locke (05:28.187)

Yeah, we have a belief in the Confident Club, same as you, that we believe some of the best speakers in the world are introverted people. But quite often the society norms is that you've got to be this great gregarious person on stage, you know, like Tony Robinson, you know, like, but actually it's the more measured approach, the people that have gravitas that can hold a room, you know, in the power of a pause.

Ash (05:37.292)

Hmm?

Ash (05:43.246)

Meh.

Ash (05:50.7)

Hmm.

Ricky Locke (05:55.931)

and taking people on a journey. Introverts, I think, are absolutely fantastic. So the fact that you have a balance, it's like a superpower. It's like your Clark Kent Superman, isn't it? I can kind of flick between the two. So that's a really good skill to have.

Ash (06:09.838)

I think again, yeah, with the, with the introversion, I like just kind of like come back to a point you said there about the silence, really the power of silence. I think we live in a society where that is being drastically diminished. Um, if you look at say social media with the way videos are put out, where you've got literally fit in your life story into a 30 second clip and the way that people edit that it's like, sounds like they're being bloody remixed.

Ricky Locke (06:16.315)

Yeah.

Ricky Locke (06:39.611)

Yeah.

Ash (06:39.854)

There's no room for the words to breathe. And, you know, purely from a processing power, a brain processing power, we need that time to let the words sink in and like figure out, okay, does this actually mean something to me? So silence is super powerful. I think in my teaching career, silence was crucial because sometimes teachers, I think like, okay, well,

Ricky Locke (06:55.961)

Yeah.

Ricky Locke (07:00.555)

Yeah.

Ash (07:07.95)

I asked a question nobody's answering. I'll go, Oh God, do I need to do something now? And it's like, no, let them think.

Ricky Locke (07:14.139)

Yeah, you, yeah, you've inspired me to think, I think about doing it. I do it like a video, like a podcast video. I sorry, like a little video on LinkedIn. I'm just sitting in front of the camera, not saying anything because the weight and the strength of what that could do to just be present in my own thoughts. But yeah, I mean, who was it? They were they, they are brilliant. They shared.

great post which was the word listen and listen is is silent just the word silent just jumbled up into different letters I thought yeah that's right it's very powerful isn't it that wonderful pause and I love the idea of what you just mentioned there about the the two extrovert introvert that you can both achieve the silence on both parts

Ash (07:46.188)

Yeah.

Ash (08:07.502)

Absolutely.

Ricky Locke (08:08.571)

So it's kind of like, yeah, there's strengths in using both, isn't there? Interesting.

Ash (08:13.134)

Oh, massively, massively. I think again, it's the, with, with, uh, with say a public speaking or when, w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w

Ricky Locke (08:28.409)

Yeah.

Ricky Locke (08:36.731)

Yeah.

Ash (08:41.902)

You need to really emphasize that it's important to be listening right now. And even with the tone, the way that you're delivering that it's much more measured. And then there are times where you just going to get super excited because I really need to share this. And you know, you know that time when you know how it is when you get really excited about something, right? Absolutely. Absolutely. It really depends on.

Ricky Locke (08:46.299)

Yeah.

Ricky Locke (08:58.331)

Yeah, it's like cats and dogs, isn't it? From back on the NLP thing. Yeah, cats and dogs. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ash (09:08.11)

It's fitting the right words and the right energy to whatever you're trying to deliver. Um, and yeah, there are times where I'll be bouncing around the room, super excited and talking a million miles an hour. And there's other times where it's like, right now we need to really focus.

Ricky Locke (09:13.007)

Yeah.

Ricky Locke (09:26.203)

Interesting then just to call back to the question. So what is the unobvious thing that you struggle with? So is it something because I'm not I'm not sure if it is something you struggle with or maybe I might be wrong, but I'm assuming that it's quite a nice balance for you. Or am I wrong? Is it something you really struggle with?

Ash (09:32.364)

Mm.

Ash (09:41.838)

The, no, the struggle is finding that balance. I think the, like, for example, say the, during the pandemic, for example, when I was just in this room, I mean, this was one of the reasons I started recording videos in the first place, because my extroverted side wasn't getting any love, wasn't getting any attention. There was no room. There were no people to entertain. There was no other energies in the room.

Ricky Locke (09:46.843)

Yeah.

Ash (10:10.414)

And that can be, that can be a struggle. And I've really had to work on a personal level, you know, when it can have an influence on say relationships, because, you know, there's certain people that want you to be there and present all the time. And I simply can't do that. And it's finding that it's finding that balance.

You know, I, I usually like when I, when I meet people for the first time or I get into a kind of romantic relationship, I usually give them a disclaimer. It's not personal. This, I am likely to disappear. Um, it's not personal. I just need to decompress and, and that can be, I think some people, I, if they don't have that, it takes some.

Ricky Locke (10:44.123)

Hahaha.

Nice, yeah, that's good.

Yeah, don't think odd of me, this is just me, yeah.

You

Ricky Locke (11:05.209)

Yeah.

Ash (11:05.294)

It takes a lot of conversations and awareness as well. And sometimes those conversations are hard and it's a learning process, but there are still times where it's learning to really pay attention to the signals and going out, you know, actually now time out, you've spent too much time here. So, so it's learning to find the schedule, learning to find the time. Um, so that's why like Tuesday mornings, for example, now I block them off.

Ricky Locke (11:13.339)

Yeah.

Ricky Locke (11:22.137)

Yeah, yeah.

Ash (11:34.316)

No one's booking a call with me. There's no sales cause there's no business. I get up when I get up on a Tuesday morning and I just, yeah, but that was a learning curve in the past. I would have just tried to crack on and in the end I've just ended up exhausted.

Ricky Locke (11:50.363)

Yeah, yeah. Wow. Well, knowing what you now know, obviously from this experience, from understanding about the, the obvious thing that you struggle with, what does this make you think and feel going forward?

Ash (12:06.126)

Oh, I like that. There was some NLP language patterns there as well, right? You just Milton'd me. Okay.

Ricky Locke (12:14.875)

Yeah.

Ash (12:18.19)

I'm right. So the, I think again, it's an ongoing process. I think the.

I think for me, when you asked that question, I lean towards kind of fixed mindset, growth mindset, the kind of the work of Carol Dweck there and...

Ricky Locke (12:40.771)

Yeah.

Ash (12:44.174)

There's, I think there's sometimes this notion really that you are always the same and you're not changing, but that is both physically and physiologically not true. You are always changing. You are literally if 10 years from, if you go 10 years in the past, you are literally a different person biologically and mentally. Um, and I think there's that notion that you're always changing. Um, the...

Ricky Locke (12:55.195)

Yeah.

Ricky Locke (13:04.603)

Yeah.

Ricky Locke (13:12.795)

Yeah.

Ash (13:13.742)

What is true now might not be true in the future. What was true in the past is made might not be true now. Um, so I believe it's, it's all about having that awareness and figuring out, okay, how can I make this work? So like I said a minute ago about the knowing I need to take time off. I didn't know that in the past and maybe there's stuff to learn.

Ricky Locke (13:16.955)

Yeah.

Ash (13:38.094)

moving forwards. Like recently, for example, I knew I had to start doing more face to face work for the extroverted side, not online work, actually in a room with people. I, but you learn that by going through the process, the process we call life.

Ricky Locke (13:53.115)

Yeah,