No, you're right, but it's really the ambiguity of language. Activation energy is the energy required to trigger a result. You can read that two different ways

No, you're right, but it's really the ambiguity of language. Activation energy is the energy required to trigger a result. You can read that two different ways: either as the threshold, or as the energy required to reach the threshold. They are sadly opposites. When used to describe a person: are they high activation energy in that it takes a lot to get them going, or are they high activation energy in that they frequently do things that are hard to get started on?