The Ice Breaker is a short, 4-6 minute speech. When you work on it, it's best not to try to tell us everything about yourself. You just can't do that in 4-6 minutes. Instead, pick some aspect of your life and focus on that.
One approach is to pick 3 things that are important to you. Then, for each one, focus on either why it's important to you, or what impact it's had on your life. Open your speech by telling us what the areas are that you're going to tell us about. Conclude the speech by reiterating the 3 areas and why you told us about each of them.
Another approach is to pick one of the following areas to focus on. Start off by telling us why you picked it and conclude by summarizing the main points.
- Your family;
- Your career;
- Your life as a kid;
- Your hobbies;
- Why you joined Toastmasters;
- What you think your strengths and weaknesses are.
These are just examples. Pick anything you want to tell us about yourself.
The main thing about an icebreaker is that it has 3 purposes: (1) to let us know a bit about you; (2) to start getting you feeling comfortable in front of us; (3) to let you know what we think are your current speaking strengths, and areas that we think you should concentrate on improving for your next speech.
That third item is a benefit of every speech you give in Toastmasters. If you don't feel that the person who evaluated you helped you enough to see your good points and areas that could be improved, ask other members for their opinions on your speech. Many members frequently ask a couple of Toastmasters for their opinions after the meeting, just so we get different viewpoints.
One thing to always remember about evaluators is they don't have all the answers and some people do a better job than others. When an evaluator says something, they're just giving you their opinion. And you don't have to agree with it. But if several people give you the same opinion, then you have to start giving it some serious thought.
Your Mentor wants to help you start out your Toastmasters experience in the best way possible. So, if you have any questions about anything, or want some help with your speech, just let that person know. If you haven't been assigned one, or don't know who it is, ask the VP Membership or VP Education.
You should strongly consider having that person or a friend listen to your Ice Breaker before the meeting. It will increase your comfort level, and maybe you will get some suggestions on how to improve it.
Good luck with your speech, We are all looking forward to hearing it