This is a rough draft of my Ice Breaker for the new Toastmasters Pathway program. I gave this speech in June 2018 shortly after I got a Toastmasters club chartered at my work. I ended up cutting out (and adding) a few things for the actual speech, and it went rather well. Feels so good to be able to get back to Toastmasters after such a long hiatus.
My name is [My Name], and as I think about what I should say for my Ice Breaker speech, and how I want you all to remember about myself, the best thing I could come up with is that I’m a jack of all trades (or most trades)… and … well you can fill in the rest of the phrase (hand gesture to engage audience to say out loud… “master of…”). Okay okay you don’t have to say it so loudly, I know how the phrase goes :)…
You might be thinking by now “What a pessimist! How negative can she be???” The phrase totally has a negative connotation on it, but today I’d like to put a much more positive spin on it because frankly I truly I believe I’m a “master of none”. I’m not a SME on anything, nor do I want to be – ever – probably until the day I die, or if you believe in re-carnation, possibly never. My life is a constant work in progress, continually changing, and forever evolving for the better (hopefully :-). I do like to say I’m a “Jack of all trades” because I have a lot of interests, and have tried my hands on many many things; some of which turned out decently, and many just totally flopped. I’m not quite sure if it’s because it’s in my DNA or due to the environmental circumstances that have been imposed on me. You see, my parents (and their respective family trees) are quite interesting all by themselves. They were quite older when they had me (pretty much skipping the entire generation), so I was raised with super old-school conservative ideologies (think 1960’s rules in 3rd world Vietnam) where gender roles were clearly defined and I was taught at a very young age to cook, clean, and how to look for a good provider (I mean husband). However, interestingly enough, due to various reasons, my mom was the breadwinner in the household and she took on the primary role of everything from changing the light bulb to orchestrating the entire 10-year process of getting us migrate to the U.S., including mountains of paperwork and endless trips to lawyers, bribing the officials, and many other things in between that I think I’d get arrested if I told you ;-). So even though I got pretty confused growing up on how I should behave and what I should strive to become (and I still am confused at times), I have learned to just try things out, see how far they can take me, and start over as needed. We also moved quite a bit when we were in Vietnam, which was quite rare, since most of the people in my town were born, grew up, and married their kindergarten sweet hearts. Between 10th grade and 12th, I lived in 4 different houses and went to 4 different schools (2 in VN, 1 in CA, and 1 here in TX). Am I jealous seeing my old friends getting to hang out with one another while I landed in a brand new school with brand new faces (and here brand new culture and language)? And let’s not even talk about the “mean girls” – yes they do exist. Absolutely yes. It was hard, actually very hard for a 15-year-old emotional already confused teenage girl like myself. I totally resented it while I went through it, but looking back, I think that period taught me how to embrace changes and adapt to changes, especially when they were out of my control.
Genetically speaking, I think I’m also blessed (or cursed depending on allergy seasons) with a variety of interests. My fraternal grandfather as a novelist, chemist, painter, musician, and politician. My parents also love reading, garden, arts, and traveling. You see that’s why I ended up being a TFS administrator at the moment. What’s TFS you ask? Exactly!! Something that nobody else in my family does nor do too many people know what it is. I have to tell you a secret though, for the TFS Administration job interview here, I did have to spin it a little to say that I’m a TFS expert, but now that I have to job, I’ll be honest – I’m NO experts :-). Shh…. Don’t tell my boss I said so. Career wise, I’ve been wearing my hats, learning many technologies, and trying many roles. For further information, please check out my LinkedIn profile at www dot (you get the gist ;)). Personally, I have many interests that come and go from painting to photography, crocheting, scrapbooking, cooking, to building web sites. I’ve been a house flipper, real estate broker, landlord and my husband and I have tried to even do wholesaling (i.e. staking those yellow signs out on the streets and trying not to get arrested) (show picture). We’ve tried building a mobile app, running a revolutionary real estate model, hosted 2 exchange students in our home, and most recently, building our own school. And no we’re not actively pursuing any of these full time, and if you ask whether we were successful in any of those endeavors by the typical definition of “success,” we would shout a resounding NO! But we have learned a lot about what our strengths and weaknesses are (and oh my lots of weaknesses), what we like and don’t like, and what we might attempt again in the future. At the end, we are still alive, and for me, that’s what matters.
And then of course there’s this Toastmasters thing. I first joined Toastmasters in 2008 after a painful breakup, in search for a change in both my personal and social landscapes. Guess what my home club was at the time? Addison Singles Toastmasters! Yes I did have an alternative motive! I was terrible at public speaking, and lonely, so one stone hitting 2 birds – score! Little did I know that I gained so much from that experience of going beyond my comfort zone and trying new things. I met a lot of wonderful people, many of which I still remain in contact up until now, and along the way, learned how to speak somewhat comfortably in front of a group. I’ve fallen in and out of Toastmasters throughout the years and gotten better and worse at public speaking at various times. In the end, did I become a master at public speaking? Obviously not (as you can tell from this presentation itself or my evaluator will soon tell me), but it’s my intent to keep trying. And that’s my moto for my own life: It’s okay not to be the master of anything, but as long as I keep trying to be a jack of some things, I’m okay.
