Quora Answer: How Do I Prepare a Toastmasters Ice Breaker Speech?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “How do I prepare a Toastmasters ice breaker speech?”

The purpose of a Toastmaster ice breaker speech is to introduce yourself to the club, and marks the beginning of your journey to be a Distinguished Toastmaster.  There are many ways to prepare for such a speech, and the online resources and manual are very helpful.

Personally, I have never been one to write my speeches in their entirety.  It may be helpful for others, but I have found that it detracts from the delivery, because I find myself trying to remember what I wrote.

Have a habit of structuring your speech.  There should be an introduction.  This introduction should be a statement, or a question to pique the audience.  If you are confident enough, make it something seemingly controversial, before clarifying yourself in the body of the speech.  After this opening, acknowledge the audience, and the Toastmaster of the Day.

Since it is your first speech, and the purpose is to introduce yourself, it should be personal.  As such, pick a significant event in your life.  Personal stories resonate.  You also do not have to remember facts.  This is your story, your hero’s journey, and you should make yourself the focus of this story.

When it comes to the body of the speech, never give more than three points.  Pick three good ones, and build your speech around it.  Avoid long, winding sentences, because you will lose your audience, and even your train of though.  Have a point, and remember that point.

Do your best to incorporate literary devices so that your speech is enhanced, and there is a flavour to it.  Within the English language, for example, there is a wealth of proverbs, idioms, alliterations, and even onomatopoeia.  As you progress in your Toastmaster journey, these forms of literary devices will become familiar.

When concluding a point, or emphasising one, consider the use of a triad – the repetition of a point three times.  There are various types of triads: hendiatris, tricolon, anaphora, epiphora, and parallelism.  Again, as you become a better public speaker, you will become intimately familiar with the technical aspects of a good speech.

An ice breaker is between four to six minutes.  When you see the indication that five minutes are up, you should have wrapped up the body of your speech, and you are ready to segue into the conclusion.  A good conclusion always references the opening.  The speech is a journey for the audience, and they should be lead back to where it began, the circle of life.

You should strive to end that speech with a strong call to arms.  It may be a rhetorical question, or an open call to action.  It should resonate with the audience.  After the ending statement, the call to action, pause for between 5 to 7 seconds, and then hand over the stage to the Toastmaster of the Day.

When it comes to the technicalities of delivery, remember to use the entire stage, and move comfortably around it.  Consider visual tricks such as moving from the left of the audience to the right to emphasise the passage of time.  Break up the audience into quarters, and pick one person in each quadrant and make eye contact.  This makes the speech personable and sincere.

Make sure to play with your voice projection, your volume and tone.  One of the tricks to get the audience to listen is to lower your voice at a strategic juncture to get them craning to hear.  This is done for dramatic effect.

A good speech is not mere rhetoric, but a stage performance.  It is supposed to bring your audience on a journey, and to make them feel what you feel and vicariously live your life.  If, months or years later, someone remembers even one memorable line from your speech, you have known you have succeeded.