Ice Breaker Speech

Aha! Moments

You all likely have had moments in your life when you say to yourself, “Aha! I get it.” For me, some of these moments have been both profound, and humorous. Of course, humorous only when I look back on them. Today I’ll share two of my Aha! moments with you.

First, is the moment I realized that not all things are meant to be. Second, is the moment I realized that it’s not realistic to predict the future.

After spending eight months as a Peace Corps volunteer in West Africa, teaching computers, I wasn’t feeling welcome or effective as a volunteer. The culture was very closed and there were some safety threats. I also had been sick in ways you could never imagine. Don’t worry, I won’t share those details with you today. However, I had made a commitment, a 2-year voluntary commitment. I didn’t want to fail. I was agonizing over my decision to stay or to leave.

During our down-time, my fellow volunteers and I would watch movies on our computer in our tiny office in the center of the city. We had only a handful of movies but we would mix it up by watching a particular movie with/without sub-titles, in french or english, sometimes spanish. The official language in Mauritania was French so I found this helpful. One movie we would watch over and over again was One flew over the Cuckoo’s nest starring Jack Nicholson. It was filmed in 1975 where his character is put in a mental hospital after he committed a crime, even though he didn’t show real signs of having any mental illness.

In one scene of the movie, Nicholson’s character is in his group therapy with other patients and he learns that one of the patients is there voluntarily. He says, “What are ya doin’ here, for Christ’s sake? … Jesus, I mean, you guys do nothin’ but complain about how you can’t stand it in this place here and then you haven’t got the guts just to walk out!”

With no exaggeration, after the 5th time watching this movie, I finally had that Aha! moment, when I realized that staying in this country as a volunteer was not meant to be. The next day, I literally let my country director know that it was time for me to go home. One Flew Over the Kucoo’s nest changed my life.

When I was high school planning for my next obvious step in life, college, I had it in my mind that I should leave sunny southern California and go far away from home. I applied to college in Hawaii, New York, Arizona, and even Darthmouth. Yes, Dartmouth, the Ivy League college in New Hampshire. Let me share with you that I was no overachiever. I wasn’t involved in any extra-curricular activities, I wasn’t an honor roll student, I wasn’t going to be voted most likely anything. I had gone to three different high schools and never found it easy to fit in. But my mom always taught me to aim high and never put limits on myself.

My mom was also big on going to the psychic to find out what will happen next. What job should she take? Is she going to win the lottery? The typical questions you want to ask a psychic.

So I asked a psychic about my future college plans. The psychic knew things about me without me telling her, she knew I was an only child, my mom a single parent, I had a cat. With that, I thought we should get to the reason I was there. So I ask her, what about college? Am I going to go the Junior College (which was the most financially reasonable option)? Yes, I see you at Costa Mesa Community college. Argh, guess that means no Dartmouth, not like you “transfer” credits from Costa Mesa to Darthmouth. But, let me ask anyway. Am I going to go to Dartmouth? She closes her eyes, she sees something, then she says, yes, I see Darthmouth in your future.

Well, I didn’t go to Darthmouth. I did go to Costa Mesa Community college for one semester before I went to University of San Diego. In the summer, I was a leasing agent for an apartment complex outside of Univ of Irvine. This job was great for me, good money, good experience. I felt super independent, on the road to success. One day, I was driving into the leasing office and I had that Aha! moment. I was working at Darthmouth Court Apartments! Is that the sign that the psychic saw? Wow, I guess she wasn’t entirely wrong but that whole exercise was unnecessary and I see no reason to try and predict the future again.

I think life has a way of happening and it’s up to you to see those Aha! moments and learn from them. I still try to predict the future now and then and I’m affected when things don’t work out as planned. However, I do try to remind myself these moments to help me stay on track and help me to find the humor in life.

- End Speech —

Generally, the Ice Breaker speech gives the speaker the opportunity to feel comfortable in front of an audience and understand their baseline of public speaking skills. For further reference on the Ice Breaker speech you can view the official guide on the Toastmaster’s International website.