Nooooo! Stopppp! I ran toward my friend, making wild arm gestures, desperately trying to wave him off as he unwittingly stumbled toward the precipice …

Too late. Crash and burn.

Okay … so my friend didn’t really take an accidental header over the side of the world then spontaneously combust. And my dramatic slo-mo attempt to save him was all in my head. I wanted to save him. The second he veered from his prepared comments into “I shouldn’t tell this story, but …” it was clear he needed saving. But I could only listen helplessly as he off-the-cuffed himself off the cliff. Later, as he tried to defend his inappropriate anecdote, he probably thought spontaneous combustion wouldn’t have been so bad.

We’ve all had our tongues detach from our brains and try to wreck our lives. How can we keep them under control? A few suggestions:

• Develop purpose. If your feet rest more comfortably in your mouth than on the floor, try communicating with purpose. Whether you’re giving formal speeches, sharing informal thoughts at work or club meetings, or just interacting with family and friends, think about why. The larger the audience and more formal the occasion, the more time you’ll need to reflect on your reason for speaking.

For instance, if you’re giving a speech to a large audience, you’ll have a formal topic. And you’ll prepare and rehearse your remarks plus plan for any Q&A follow-up—to avoid the kind of uh-oh moment my friend had. If you’re speaking at an informal meeting, you’ll at least want to have a list of talking points to help you stay on track. And when you’re having a conversation with friends and are tempted to tell a story, take a second to ask yourself if the story is on topic—and if you’ll be glad you told it an hour from now.

• Trust your instincts. You’re about to tell a joke or share an anecdote or whisper a bit of gossip. Suddenly you hear this annoying voice in your head: Better not. You shake it off. Hey, this is a funny joke (entertaining story, interesting bit of gossip), and I’m gonna tell it! No don’t. Bad idea. But you are determined not to let nagging doubts get in the way of your center-of-attention moment. So you tell your joke, share your anecdote, whisper your bit of gossip. Then for the rest of the day, your annoying voice whines Why did you do that?

Sound familiar? When the annoying voice in your head suggests you rethink sharing something, imagine your internal self running toward you in slo-mo, making wild arm gestures, and mouthing Nooooo! Stopppp! This is your chance for a do-over before you’ve done the deed. Don’t blow it.

• Ask for feedback. If my friend had mentioned to me in advance he was considering telling that story, I’d have explained why it was a bad idea to relate that anecdote to that audience. And maybe he’d have listened and spared himself a lot of misery. If you’re concerned about the appropriateness of something you’re about to insert into a speech or share with a friend, think about running it by someone you trust. You’re free to take the advice or not. But spoken words are like dynamite. Once they explode, you can’t unexplode them. So if you have any reason to believe something might be better left unsaid … don’t light the fuse.