In IBM Pune, I am part of the local Toastmasters' Club known as the IBM Thinkmasters.
The first speech that you give here is known as the Ice Breaker. Typically you would take about yourself.
I did just that and i am going to share is here.
Good Afternoon Everyone!
This is my ice breaker speech.
I will talk about myself.
But I won't be talking about Academics and things like that.
I will talk about a bit of my hobbies, experiences and the lessons
that i have learnt.
My Hobbies
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I love travelling a lot.
My favourate state is Himachal Pradesh.
In the last 5 years, i have visited Himachal 4 times.
I like going unknown not-very-popular destinations rather than the regular tourist places.
I love travelling by train. As i kid, i was always fascinated by the train and i still enjoy travelling
by train. Along with travelling another thing i enjoy is trekking. Recently I completed 10-day trek again in Himachal.
Besides that, the biggest two passions i have reading books and watching movies.
I typically read a lot of non-fiction books, and the categories range from History, Economics, Philosopy
to Travellogues.
In movies, no specific genre...any good movie is fine.
My Experiences and Lessons learnt
-----------------------------------
1. During my school years, i had fallen into bad company. I was distracted from studies, good friends
and a lot of positive things.The end result was that i got really bad marks in SSC i.e 10th.
I found it tough to get into a good college. Luckily I did get into a good college.
My parents did support me a lot. I realized my mistakes then and worked to correct them.
I studied hard and got good marks in my 12th. That helped me get into a good engg college.
The lesson i learnt from this is that
"we will make mistakes in our life; we will fall down but life
always gives us chance to get up and rectify these mistakes
and we should take those chances and make full use of them"
In the movie "The Shawshank Redemption", there is very dialogue
"Salvation lies within". This is very apt.
2. In 2004-05, I had just finished my 2nd yr of engg and i had gone with a local pune group for a himalayan trek.
On the last day of the trek, (the day we have trekked the most). We were completely exhausted.
I, along with another friend on the trek got lost in the jungle.
We were lost and spent the entire night in the jungle.
I was just an amateur trekker back then, just learning and this friend was an expert.
We had to cross a lot of dangerous terrain which wouldn't have even in our wildest
dreams. Even though I was not a greater trekker or very fit trekker, i never thought of quitting
no matter how tough or dangerous the terrain was. We are lucky to have lived to tell the tale.
I learnt firstly "Don't get lost" and "secondly, When there is a will, there is a way"
3. Now, I will talk about the most important part of my life.
I am really lucky that I got to marry the love of my life.
There were a lot of issues which we knew of before hand, that
would surely prevent our being together. There were times
when our closest friends would say that it not going to happen
and that we should stop seeing each other etc.
But obviously, we couldn't live apart and things fell into place
and everything got resolved.Again My parents supported me here as always.
I learnt that "When want something from the bottom of your heart
the entire universe will conspire to make it happen and surely does!"
These are some of the most important lessons that i have learnt in my life.
I thought sharing these experiences and the lessons learnt would help others.
I hope i have broken the ice !
