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We’ve all experienced it. Sweaty palms, anxious quiver in the stomach, racing thoughts. No, dear reader, not the morning after a two-day cocaine bender. I’m talking about the minutes leading up to a public speaking engagement. Whether it be your best man toast at your pal’s wedding, or an important presentation to some corporate big-wigs, speaking in public is incredibly nerve-wracking. And although alcohol can be an effective confidence-booster, it’s not feasible to drink in every public speaking situation in which you may find yourself. (Or, you could just always carry a flask on you. Hell, carry a flask on you at all times anyway.) You should only drink to supplement your natural self-confidence.

How are you to build up that sense of confidence? Prepare, prepare, prepare.

“But how,” you might ask, “am I to prepare for an unexpected speech thrust upon me?!” Why, simply read this guide, follow its tenets, and you’ll be able to handle anything that comes your way. If you know the topic beforehand, you’re lucky. That means you can prepare your presentation or speech, put together note cards and practice in front of the mirror. But if you want to be a kick-ass spontaneous public speaker, you gotta develop a few basic skills before you start twinkling the champagne flute at the company dinner. And no, I’m not talking about the ability to chug the last of the bubbly before the speech (although if you’re gonna tap your wine glass with your fork, an empty glass carries sound better). Believe it or not, there are a few things you can do to prepare for any unexpected speaking occasion.

1. Toasts
Some might not consider a toast to be public speaking, but these things pop up all the time. It could be at the local dive with a few of your closest, long-lost buddies, or it could be at your first Thanksgiving dinner with your fiance’s parents. Whatever the occasion, you should have a few really great toasts prepared if you want to make a good, lasting impression. One of my favorites is “May the roof never fall in, and may we as friends never fall out.” It’s a classic Irish drinking toast, and who better than the Irish to instruct us in the ways of drinking? I’ve used it numerous times with all different demographics, and it never fails to impress whomever I’m with. You can use it with close friends, but the thing about a great, classic toast is its ability to evoke a sense of community and instant friendship. When you’re addressing people you don’t know, a warm, witty toast is a surefire way to ingratiate yourself. Getting on the audience’s good side is the key to success in public speaking, so take heed and get yourself a couple cool toasts. And remember, an audience isn’t just a homogeneous distant group; it’s made up of individuals.

2. Work Presentation
Unless you are a total screw up and know nothing about your job, spontaneous work presentations should be small potatoes. You will already be familiar with the presentation space and the audience, negating the anxiety that comes from anticipating the unexpected. Regardless, don’t coast on the fact that you know where you are. As I said before (and it bears repeating), prepare, prepare, prepare. However if you have no time to prepare, and assuming you have a few things to say, quickly parse out two or three important points you want to communicate and stick to them, no matter what. Don’t pad your presentation with a digression about what you had for breakfast. You will bore your colleagues and lose your train of thought as well. Keep the audience rapt by focusing on a few salient observations and driving them home in clear, concise language. No rambling. Everyone hates a rambler. Endless distraction means that nobody will remember a word you said and all your hard work will be for naught.

3. Award Speech
Congratulations, you’ve won an award! But before you can hang it on the wall in your office, you need to accept it in a gracious, self-deprecating way. This can easily go sour if you allow yourself to become too overwhelmed by the moment. It happens to the best of people, but there’s no reason it should happen to you. Consider this: a famous actor wins an Academy Award. He gets up to give his victory speech and, instead of neatly giving thanks to all those who have made it possible for him to be on the stage, spends all of his allotted time talking about something totally unrelated to the event at hand and doesn’t thank anybody. As I said in #2, rambling is the best way to completely lose your audience and yourself. When giving an awards speech use the time wisely for its assigned purpose. Thank everyone that needs thanking, insert a self-deprecating comment here or there, and ingratiate yourself with the audience by being humble (but not too humble; after all, you deserve it!). If you forget a name, don’t sweat it - you can always write a thank you note later (consult Miss Manners for proper method of doing so).

4. If All Else Fails and You’re Stuck On-stage With Nothing To Say
For some reason you’ve disregarded all of the above suggestions and have humiliated yourself in front of everybody you know and love. While this situation may be soul-crushingly torturous, take heart! There is a way to salvage yourself from utter scorn: humor. That’s right, humor. A well placed one-liner combined with a modicum of humility can defuse the most awkward situation, no matter what racist joke you’ve just cracked. Throwing yourself on the sword in a gently self-effacing way is endearing precisely because everybody has been there at one time or another. Your audience is made up of human beings who will respond to your crisis with empathy if handled properly. Don’t beat yourself up in a way that makes you seem like a depressed 13 year old girl; such immature behavior will ruin your credibility. Just admit your weakness and move on. If you drop the ball, try something like the following: “Someone once told me that there was a right way and a wrong way to give a speech which was great advice, except that I apparently didn’t listen to the rest!”

In the end, there is one sure way to make sure you don’t screw everything up right off the bat: be yourself. Yes, just be yourself. It’s really that simple. Putting on a mask for the benefit of others will only increase your fears by giving you one more thing to worry about. Remember, nobody really cares about you; they care about the content of your speech. Dedicate all your energy to making your talk kick-ass and perfect and don’t psyche yourself out about little details. If you deliver an eloquent, well reasoned, humorous, and humble speech, I promise that nobody will be talking about how your shirt was buttoned incorrectly or that fact that you were sweating so hard you left a snail trail when you left the stage. They’ll just talk about how awesome that speech was and, by proxy, how awesome you are. And you are awesome. So good luck!