Break The Ice With Your Icebreaker Speech

HOW TO COME UP WITH YOUR ICEBREAKER SPEECH
 
Icebreaker speech is like doing sports – the hardest thing is to get started. Even though I knew that my objective was to tell about myself, it took me almost several weeks to come up with an idea what to talk about. It seems that introduction of yourself is the easiest and at the same time the most difficult topic. At the first glance, who knows ourselves better than we do? But on the other hand, there are so many stories and so many thoughts to share. So, where to start?

I think it’s very important to look inside yourself and think of what do you want to reach with your speech. Do you want to make people laugh at the humorous story in your life? Or do you want to explain your point of view on one or another topic? Or maybe do you want to motivate people to do something they have never done before? There are tons of possibilities and you can choose any. But the key is you should identify yourself with the message you want to tell. It will help you to keep the speech personal, revealing and insightful.

I’ll give you an example. The best life lesson I’ve learned so far is never give up and never be afraid of difficulties. I try to live by this motto and it’s something that always pushes me to succeed in life. So, I thought this experience would be worth sharing with others during my icebreaker speech. And you know what, it came across very well. The audience could feel that I knew what I was talking about. Therefore, they were very interested to hear my story, and I believe I even made some people think about how they deal with their difficulties.    

HOW TO WRITE AN ICEBREAKER SPEECH

Once you know what you want to reach with your Icebreaker speech, you can start with brainstorming. I wrote down all points I had in mind, which could reveal the main message. After that I chose five main points that I found the most interesting, and which could build a story. Looking back at my actual presentation, I think I should have taken less points. It would give me a chance to take my time, breathe, and make some pauses.

Anyway, with the help of the Icebreaker Outline from the Pathways Camp I structured the body of my speech and started to work on my introduction and conclusion. There are different techniques how to write them. My approach was to find a metaphor that would match my story, and use it in the beginning and at the end of my speech. I talked about the life being like a roller coaster with its ups and downs, and that we should not be afraid of the different curves and dips of our “ride”. I meant to remind people that sometimes in life it gets worse before it gets better. So we should just go through and remember that after all everything is going to be just alright.

This trick, to start and finish my presentation with the same thoughts, made my speech more finished. If you want to look on the structure of my Icebreaker, you may download my script here. I left some comments as well.  

  

HOW TO PRACTICE YOUR ICEBREAKER SPEECH

Proper rehearsing of your speech is a key component in preparation to any presentation, especially when it comes to the icebreaker. It is so crucial, because knowing that you got the speech well mastered boosts your confidence, gives smoothness to your voice, and, what is also so important, it helps to check whether you stay in the given time frame. There are hundreds ways how to practice your speech. But here again I followed a piece of advice from the Pathways Tutorial. And I must say in the future I will always use those techniques I learned from the tutorial, because they were a real deal breaker for me.

At first I rehearsed each single part of my speech separately and in a different order. I did it until I knew it was mastered so well that I could be spontaneous during it. It sounds strange, but the confidence that you can start your speech from any part and any time allows you to improvise in between. Even if your improvisation won’t lead you where you want, you can any time go to the next part, and at the end you still will be able to finish your speech.

After I knew my script like the back of my hand, I videotaped myself. Even though it is a very weird feeling to watch yourself on the video, I would still really recommend you to do that. Only watching the video I could observe my body language, mimic, and note every “um” or “ah” I said. As a result I used only 4 filler words during my speech at the Toastmasters and I got a very good feedback on my body language.

The last but not least, I practiced in front of the mirror. In the beginning I got distracted by my own facial expressions. Trying to adjust my mimic I couldn’t follow what I was saying. But with the time I overcame that problem. I got better with my gestures and I learned how to stay focused on my speech. It’s a very important skill when you are talking to the public. No matter what people in the audience are doing, you can always deliver your speech. 
 

 

ICEBREAKER AT THE TOASTMASTERS

Finally, the day of my icebreaker came. I was more nervous than I expected, and what I’ve heard, it came across a bit. But I guess it’s normal. Any of the great speakers go through the same problems in the beginning of their road. More public speaking will help to improve that issue.

What I really want to highlight about that evening is the support of my club. Not counting the official evaluation at the end of the meeting, I got 9 feedback sheets from the fellow toastmasters. I didn’t expect to get such a great response. Their opinion about my strengths and some specific recommendations made me feel like I am already at a good place and now I know what to do to improve my public speaking skills.  Thank you for that.💓

EMBRACE YOUR FEEDBACK

As I already mentioned, I got a lot of feedback on my speech. Different people listed absolutely different things they liked about my presentation. I found on the paper such comments about my strengths like good stage presence, personal touch, and inspirational speech. But the funny thing is that all 9 people wrote down the same recommendation to me: take breath, speak more slowly, and put more love in your pronunciation. 

I am aware of talking too fast, but I didn’t expect that so many people would recommend me to work on that. It triggered me to find out techniques how to learn to speak slowly. As soon as I find out the answer on my question, I will write a post here. But in the meantime you are more than welcome to write your comments on that topic. 

But I found the answer to another question – how to improve your pronunciation. There is a great Pronunciation App that lets you type in and practice any phrase you want. It’s like a voice function at Google Assistant, Siri, or Cortana, when you say command and the voice recognition technology will execute it. Pronunciation App is basically developed in the same way with only difference – instead of executing your commands it allows the users to practice their pronunciation. So, we’ll see where it will bring me.