Pathways: The Ice Breaker

Your Ice Breaker is a story about you. For this speech you can share anything about yourself that you would like. The speech can be personal, but it doesn’t have to be. Some people give an entire speech simply describing their favorite meal, while others delve into an important or momentous event in their life. If you’ve already delivered an Ice Breaker in another path, you can tell the audience why you chose your new path and what you hope to accomplish. Or just share something new about yourself (unless you told every single fact about yourself in that first 4 to 6 minutes).

Your speech can be in any style; it can be funny, informative, persuasive, or anything else you’d like.

Give your speech an opening, body, and conclusion to effectively communicate your overall purpose.

A simple template for an Ice Breaker goes like this: First, find a topic or time in your life that you can talk about for 4 to 6 minutes. Begin by introducing yourself. In the body of your speech, share information you would like your fellow members to know about you. Conclude with a funny or interesting anecdote that relates to your desire to become a better speaker and leader.

Think of the Ice Breaker as an assessment of how you are feeling about your skills at the beginning of your path, and something you can build upon for improvement. For instance, maybe your goal is simply to survive this often-feared speech. But take note of other challenging areas as well—how did you feel about finding a topic, writing the speech, and making your voice sound natural? For your next speech, challenge yourself to work on one of the aspects you found difficult this time.

—Kate McClare, DTM