I really struggled to come up with a theme for my Icebreaker. It actually delayed my officially joining Toastmasters a couple of weeks while I tried to figure out an approach. I didn't want to commit until I felt I confident that I could take this first challenge on.
I had also gotten to watch someone else's Icebreaker, and was so impressed by how it encompassed the chronology of his life without explicitly using a sequence of his life's events. He found a really nice balance of explaining his identity, his journey of growth. It was personal, poised and surprisingly existential.
The Icebreaker advantage of an opportunity to introduce myself in a more personal way, not just a sequence of where I was born, where I went to school, what kind of work I did, my family. It's also been a personal struggle to not have my identity be defined by my work, schools, where I grew up.
I tried a couple of approaches: Tell a story about a growth experience, travel that changed my worldview, how I approached a big decision. I kept on running into dead ends.
After a good week or so of really committing thought to this, I changed strategy by thinking of the things I value.
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