🔥 BestSelf Co.’s Icebreaker Starter Pack Review
A deck focused on forging meaningful relationships.
🤔 What’s in the deck?
What you’ll find in once you break into these icebreakers.
This deck has six types of cards.
→ Life — a focus on things that happen or have happened in your life, like “What’s the best gift you have ever received?”
→ Deep — these provoke some thought as it says they ask more profound questions, like “What was the hardest decision you ever had to make?”
→ Experiences — just like it says, questions about things you have experienced, like “what’s your most powerful and vivid memory?”
→ Would You Rather — convo starters like, “Would you rather hear good news or bad news first?”
→ If You Could — convo starters like, “If you could have any superpower, what would you choose?”
→ Random — then there’s the random category with gems like this: “Who are three people you want on your team if there was a zombie apocalypse?”
💡What I think.
My overall thoughts about the quality, content, themes, and more.
→ It’s a high-quality deck, the cards are smaller, like a typical playing card deck, and the box is sturdy.
→ There are some wonderful cards in here and others I probably would never use as a facilitator with the type of workshops I run, but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t be helpful for you!
→ I’m not gonna lie; some weird ones in here are scattered throughout. Some make you go, “what the heck is that?”
→ The cards in the life category align most with light-hearted check-ins. Actually, one of my favorites is, “What’s something you believed earlier in your career but think about differently now?” — This shows how we grow and how opinions and perspectives can change.
→ I like the cards in the random category; there are some fantastic ones!
👀 Peek at some cards.
A look into some of the cards I liked and others that made me go, “huh?!”
Life Cards
👍 What do the first 30 mins of your typical day look like? — I enjoy this one. I think it’s an excellent check-in for a session, perhaps around rituals or habits or maybe even learning about your team. I would probably make it a bit more conversational in tone, but I like the concept.
😳 What’s the last thing you completed on your bucket list? — this is an okay question. However, it assumes everyone has a bucket list and seems like a weird icebreaker question without context.
Deep Cards
👍 How do you get in the way of your own success? — this one is a pretty great one to help people reflect and could be good for 1:1s or Team Building sessions.
😳 In what way do you feel your childhood was happier than other people’s? It feels super weird to me to ask something this way, and doesn’t promote psychological safety in a group. This may not be meant for workshops. If I was to ask something similar, I might change it to “How was your childhood different than others in your eyes?”
Experiences Cards
👍 What’s one of your pet peeves? — I think this can get people to open up, and I like the approach. It helps people talk about things that bother them and connect with others in a way that doesn’t spiral into complaining. It’s more about connection. One of my pet peeves? When people don’t put their shopping carts away n grocery parking lots!
😳 Who’s the worst boss you’ve ever had and why? — while the concept of this, I think the wording makes it hard for people to feel comfortable answering. The focus on “who” indicates telling a name. A better way to ask this might be, “Tell us about your experience with a horrible boss.”
Would You Rather Cards
👍 Would you rather explore space or the ocean? — this is fun and opens up exploration and curiosity. I might expand it with a question about why.
😳 Would you rather end the life of one human of 100 puppies and kittens? — I get they wanna dig deep here, but what?! I get the parallels to the trolley example here, but I would most likely not use this in a workshop.
If You Could Cards
👍 If you could solve one world problem what would it be? — I think this is a good way to understand what people genuinely care about, and what they are passionate about.
😳 If you could only drink one type of alcohol for the rest of your life, what would you choose? — this seems like a question that would exclude people. You are alienating people who don’t drink for whatever reason, and I think you should be careful with this one. You can always switch out alcohol with something else to use this question.
Random Cards
I like this category the best, I didn’t really have a huh?! card
👍 What’s the last product you returned? — I think this one has so many possibilities! Imagine you are doing a workshop for a new product and want to look at return risks upfront. This would be a great way to start that session.
👍 What’s your most used emoji? — So fun. This is a great team-building one, and maybe you can even customize it to something like what’s your most used emoji in Slack for a team workshop if your team uses Slack.
👩💻 How do I use this as a facilitator?
Let’s learn how to utilize these cards in a session.
Ice Melters — like other decks I’ve talked about, many of these cards can be translated into check-in or opening moments in an experience.
Team Connection — you can use these cards to help conversations unfold that build team connection, as most cards are centered around learning about each other and creating relationships.
