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Three Examples of Ice-Breaker Speeches

“Tell me about yourself?”

How do you respond to this most simple of questions?

This is the question that starts many friendships, job interviews, professional relationships and team experiences. However, in many cases… the way that we answer ruins the possibility of creating something great.  How do you answer this question?

Andrew Dlugan provides an excellent overview of the Ice Breaker speech at his blog Six Minutes.  I recommend that you start by reading that post.

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This is a good speech to practice 
– Introduce yourself: you are an absolute authority on this topic, no research will be needed.
– Conquer fear: get started on preparing a speech that you will give hundreds of times over the course of a life; when you meet someone new, when you move to a new team at work, when you start a new training course.

Here are a 3 simple examples of how to introduce yourself:

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Structure: “How did I get here?”

Patrick from US Toastmasters

Would you like to meet Patrick?  How did his story engage you?  Are you interested in finding out more?  How could you use Patrick’s structure to explain who you are?
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Structure 4 phases of my life:

Esha from Indian Toastmasters

Would you like to meet Esha?  How did her story engage you?  Are you interested in finding out more?  How could you use Esha’s structure to explain who you are?

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Structure: My life as Fiction

Charles from USA Toastmasters

Would you like to meet Charles?  How did his story engage you?  Are you interested in finding out more?  How could you use Tom’s structure to explain who you are?  (PS Charles has given over 4,000 speeches and is a professional speaker)

Are there any other good examples?  Please let me know.

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Another way to improve your confidence is regular practice.  I have been developing an online module of my Persuasive Communications seminar.  It is available here: Improve My Speaking. Feel free to share this resource with friends (and people who need it).

P.S. If you liked this post you might also like The greatest coaching question of all time and The top 5 Commencement Speeches.

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39 responses to “Three Examples of Ice-Breaker Speeches”

  1. Anca Sabau Avatar
    Anca Sabau

    Unfortunately the 3 video examples do not seem to show 🙁

    Reply
    1. Conor Avatar
      Conor

      will update, thanks

      Reply
  2. JoeHx Avatar
    JoeHx

    My wife and I just gave our Icebreaker Speeches last month. I thought hers was great; mine was okay. I did mine in chronological order.

    I also typed it out and posted it on my blog if anyone is interested: https://hendrixjoseph.github.io/toastmasters-icebreaker-speech-the-story-of-joe/

    Reply
  3. Anne Avatar
    Anne

    it will be good to have an ice breaker at the beginning of ur speech so that people can pay attention…n have ur message go through their mind

    Reply
  4. Bren Murphy Avatar
    Bren Murphy

    I like the shares – keep the speech personal, revealing and insightful – and add some unexpected twists.
    thanks,
    Bren

    Reply
    1. Conor Neill Avatar
      Conor Neill

      Yep – I think it was Dr Steve Martin that said that gifts are best when they are “unexpected, significant and personal” – I think the same works in speaking – if you share something unexpected, significant and personal it is valued by the audience.

      Reply
  5. Abhishek Avatar
    Abhishek

    It’s not so good we don’t want vedios we want the text

    Reply
  6. Sergio Rodrigues Avatar
    Sergio Rodrigues

    To tell you the truth, I wasn’t particularly impressed by any of them and I wouldn’t choose any as a role model. First of all. I hardly could understand what they were saying, even though English is not my first language. In addition to that their body languages were quite poor: heads down, hands crossed,low voice, and so on.
    The good thing is that,watching these guys, I realized I am so bad speaker than I imagined.

    Reply
    1. Conor Neill Avatar
      Conor Neill

      That is a great realization! A friend told me that bad books exist to inspire others to be authors… if this bad book can get published, why not me? 😉

      Reply
  7. Harshit Meena Avatar
    Harshit Meena

    Hare Krishna conor,thanks..
    It has been a lerarning shop here!!
    And humans are made for progressive way of life so I would like to meet with better ones!

    Reply
  8. Harshit Meena Avatar
    Harshit Meena

    Hare Krishna conor,thanks..
    It has been a learning shop here!!
    And humans are made for progressive way of life so I would like meet with better ones!

    Reply
  9. shasha Avatar
    shasha

    thanx but i didn’t get what i want exactly

    Reply
    1. Conor Neill Avatar
      Conor Neill

      Can you tell me what you were looking for? Maybe I can direct you there?

      Reply
  10. Michael Long Avatar
    Michael Long

    I enjoyed all three I can’t wait for my time!

    Reply
  11. Girish Kumar Avatar
    Girish Kumar

    I am member of Toastmaster, yes, all three were brilliant. It is only by practice, sharing your ideas with mentor, improving your speech will make better speaker.

    Reply
    1. Conor Neill Avatar
      Conor Neill

      Yes, each person has to go on their own journey; start from where they start and make one improvement at a time 😉

      Reply
  12. Sakthi Avatar
    Sakthi

    All 3 speeches were great considering their first speech in TM. I remember my first speech in TM local club and it went well. But my second and third speech was not so well compared to my Ice Breaker speech. I tend to forget the speech how much I practice. Any ideas/tips how to remember the speech because I should not be using notes during my speech.

    Reply
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    Reply
  14. Syed Jaffer Hussain Avatar
    Syed Jaffer Hussain

    I had seen and come across so many people advises so much on improving communication skills and the style to adopt, but, your advice is really impressive and gives what one needed. Good work and one more die-hard of to your fan’s club. I have been just watching your videos and trying to put in place the advises that you gave, and I can see myself, being a public speaker, I am improving a lot and need more improvements. Thanks for all your valuable tips and great links. You are really an inspiring to many of us.

    Reply
  15. rajaperumal Avatar
    rajaperumal

    Patrick was good. bit fidgety.
    Esha good body language.
    Tom was great very matter of fact.

    Reply
  16. Sukhdip Avatar
    Sukhdip

    Initially i could not engage with either of the three members and i thought i culd do better. So been a smart cookie i put on the webcam and started talking about myself………….and there goes……. I realised i am worse than all of them and needed to improve big time on articulating my thoughts and put across to myself.As long they were in myind, everything was alright but the moment the tongue was geared up nothing made sense.
    Thnks and i have started working on it.

    Reply
    1. Conor Neill Avatar
      Conor Neill

      Brilliant – yep, it is often so much easier to point out flaws in others than it is to deliver the perfect version ourselves – well done on taking the path to mastery of communication rather than the path of mastery of criticism 😉

      Reply
  17. Juliana Pazourou Avatar
    Juliana Pazourou

    Patrick’s speech is interesting and he seemed to have taken all my concentration, by the time i got to toastmaster speech 1 and Tom, kind of lost interest. Cant make up my mind if I would have listenedd to tom or the lady had they been first.

    Reply
    1. Conor Neill Avatar
      Conor Neill

      hehe – yep, first and last speakers always have an advantage in terms of being memorable!

      Reply
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  19. Vero Avatar
    Vero

    Patick started off strong, but he lost me somewhere in the middle and I stopped watching. When deciding whether or not someone is interesting, I don’t want a narrative that takes me back and forth too much.

    Reply
  20. Colleen White Avatar
    Colleen White

    Was that a trick question about Patrick’s presentation?

    Reply
    1. LloydChiro Avatar
      LloydChiro

      I think it was just a rhetorical question to prompt you to evaluate his approach.

      Reply
      1. Conor Neill Avatar
        Conor Neill

        😉

  21. 水着 ショップ Avatar
    水着 ショップ

    prada 激安

    Reply
  22. Nagelpilz BehandelnfußPilz Avatar
    Nagelpilz BehandelnfußPilz

    Hi, I check your new stuff daily. Your humoristic style is
    witty, keep doing what you’re doing!

    Reply
  23. Lalit Avatar
    Lalit

    Isha’s speech was good

    Reply
    1. Conor Neill Avatar
      Conor Neill

      Yes, she is great 😉

      Reply
  24. Jasmine Avatar
    Jasmine

    Esha’s speech was the best!!!!!!

    Reply
    1. Conor Neill Avatar
      Conor Neill

      😉 she is good!

      Reply
  25. elena Avatar
    elena

    Tom’s presentation was great. So funny¡¡¡¡¡ it was a good tool to link his life to historical moments and important historical figures. I believe his body language was not so good at the end of the speech(around min 5) as he was balancing a lot, am I right?… Thanks

    Reply
    1. Conor Neill Avatar
      Conor Neill

      Yes 😉 I am looking to expand and give some more good examples… any good tips?

      Reply
  26. christinaoshaughnessy Avatar
    christinaoshaughnessy

    Loved Tom’s speech. Que hombre tan simpático, no?

    Reply
    1. Conor Neill Avatar
      Conor Neill

      Hehehe, yep. You finished with Greek and Romans? 😉

      Reply

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