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What Should I Speak About?

It's much easier to be convincing if you care about your topic. Figure out what’s important to you about your message and speak from the heart

- Nicholas Boothman

So you joined Toastmasters. Congratulations. You’ve taken the first step on your journey to becoming a more confident, self-assured speaker and leader. But now they expect you to get up in front of the others and give your Ice Breaker? Are they kidding? Talk? In front of people? For four to six minutes? Yikes!

“My butterflies have butterflies! What am I supposed to talk about?”

Image of Notepad with Coffee on table

Relax, your Ice Breaker is the easy one. It’s just to get you over that initial hump of terror. An Ice Breaker is just that – you want to break the ice and let the other members know a little bit about you.

You won’t have the time to tell us your entire life story in four to six minutes so maybe don’t start with “I was born in a little log cabin back in …”. Start with something about who you are as an adult. Do you work? Where? Tell us a bit about that. What about your kids? Your pets? Your favourite hobby? I’m sure you have lots of interesting stories about your life. Remember - no need to start with your name. After all, the Toastmaster just introduced you so we know that much.

Phew! Ice Breaker is done. Now what? There are several projects to choose from in level 1. They are the same regardless of which path you are on. The paths start to differ in level 2 but for now, everyone does the same speeches. The order in which you decide to give the speeches is up to you so pick the project that sounds most interesting and activate it. Launch the online learning and review the instructions.

But what do you talk about? That’s the fun part. Think about what happened in your life today, this week, this month? Your topic could be anything. One of the 2021 World Champion of Public Speaking finalists asks himself this question whenever he comes across something interesting or something that made him think – “is there a speech in that?” He’s constantly looking at the world through the lens of looking for speech topics.

For example, my son told me recently that he had paid for the coffee orders for a couple of cars behind him at the drive-thru one morning. When he went back to that same coffee shop hours later, the same barista told him that the chain of people paying for the car behind them had lasted for the whole day. I heard that story and thought what a great speech that could make.

What about a funny story about trying to figure out which colour of white paint is the “right white” to satisfy your picky mother-in-law? The walls are covered with swatches of 8 different colours of white paint and when she asked you which one you like best, you have to decide whether or not to admit to her that they all look the same to you. What to do, what to do?

Did you just come back from your first vacation since the global pandemic started? Tell us about it.

You see, speeches don’t have to be about momentous occasions, although they can be. Speeches are about anything you care about. Just remember to keep it clean, stay away from controversial topics, and avoid bad language. Keep those simple guidelines in mind and you’ll do just fine.

Karen MacNeil, DTM

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Location: Ontario, Canada

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