Hi Everyone, I've been super lazy this 4 day weekend and now it's time to get back into stuff - packing for my trip, doing laundry, and oh yeah, I'm having tiling and painting and repair work starting on my third floor tomorrow. I've got a lot to get ready before bed tonight!
Margaret, an icebreaker is a huge milestone. I remember being so nervous that my sweaty hands smudged the ink of my notecards and in practice, I dropped them and got them out of order so I tied them together with a ribbon so they'd at least stay in order! Remember that everyone is nervous their first time and that's okay. One part of the program is learning how to overcome the nerves and still be informative/persuasive/entertaining on stage. The primary objective of the icebreaker is to get over the first one - do it just to do it. It also helps to establish your baseline so that you can grow and improve. Some things that I learned along the way:
1. You can everyone something about yourself. You can tell someone everything about yourself. What you can't do is tell everyone everything about yourself. So don't try. Instead, I recommend picking a general theme or topic and focus on that. For mine, I decided to use my silver charm bracelet to tie 3 stories/life lessons together. I selected 3 charms that I'd collected at a "moment" in my life where I learned something, described the charm, described the circumstances the "before and after" of me. What I learned and how I changed as a result. I titled it "Charmed I'm Sure".
2. Try not to speak to the audience as a hole. Pick out a friendly face - maybe your mentor or the TMOD that introduced you and speak to them. Then, pick out another someone and speak to them. Continue that way. It's easier than trying to speak to a room full of people if you just speak to one person at a time.
3. I found it helpful to start getting excited about my next project BEFORE delivering my current one. That way if I screwed something up, I didn't dwell on it. I just harnessed that energy to apply to my next speech. Note - you will have times when you want to be hard on yourself for doing something wrong or not doing something right or forgetting something or just not pulling off the impact (such as laughter) you had hoped. The experts say there are 3 speeches each time you take the stage - the one you plan to give, the one you do give, and the one you wish you gave. Resist the temptation to beat yourself up and cheer up - that which doesn't kill you will make a great story to use in a speech some day about how you have grown from the beginning!
4. Evaluators are humans too and as such, they can be wrong. Run all feedback through your own filter - does it work for you, would the suggestion bring your speech closer to your vision, etc. I've heard a lot of evaluators say something I flat out disagree with about my own speeches and about others. Once, for a humorous contestant, they recommended a costume. I thought a costume would make it "silly" but wouldn't highlight the point that the speaker was a fish out of water in the particular scenario and recommended the exact opposite. A suit was better in my opinion. I've also been disappointed by "weak" evaluations that didn't really hit the mark when I knew something wasn't right but didn't know how to fix it. Just take the good and leave the rest.
I'm sure you will do great and I can't wait to hear all about it!
