Why your brain is an unreliable narrator (w/ Aparna Nancherla)
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TED Audio Collective. You're listening to How to Be a Better Human. I'm your host, Chris Duffy. Sometimes if I think too hard about this podcast, my head starts to spin. Like, who am I to host this show or host any show for that matter? Why on earth would I think that people should listen to me ask questions about being a better human? And why would these successful, intelligent guests agree to an interview?

It's easy to start feeling like this whole thing is a fraud and I'm about to be found out and kicked out and that I'll never work again. I want to say, but of course that's not the case. That's like what would make sense to say here, but of course that's not the case. But if I'm being honest, I don't know that I really believe that that's not the case. Sometimes I really wonder. I hope that these feelings of insecurity are wrong and inaccurate, but I can't say that I know for sure. And I think that almost all of us have those doubts sometimes where we question ourselves and feel like we're faking it.

But for some people, those feelings can be constant, intense, and powerful. Imposter syndrome. Today's guest, Aparna Nancherla, writes about her own experiences with imposter syndrome and other mental health challenges in her book, Unreliable Narrator, which comes out September 19th. Amy Poehler described Aparna's book as a deeply honest and funny look at how exhausting it can be to live a human life. And here's a clip from the audiobook, courtesy of Penguin Random House Audio.

I wanted to write a book about imposter syndrome because it's an identity I've embraced without question my entire life. Like being a Leo. I'm right on the cusp, but it's the more fun, flamboyant one. My pragmatic Virgo heart unenthusiastically understands. Or having brown eyes. I used to think they were black. You know, like a meerkat's. But there's no wiggle room on this one, as fun as a wiggle room sounds. My scammer-identifying roots go way back.

On my mother's telling, I was born with jaundice and suctioned out via vacuum, so I showed up unwillingly with a cone head and yellow eyes, perfectly styled for my National Enquirer cover photo shoot. Even then, I arrived in the manner of someone who wants everybody else to understand I wasn't thrilled about my whole deal either. We're going to have a lot more from Aparna, an undeniably successful amount of conversation, in just a moment. But first, a few podcast ads.

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These days, we're surrounded by photo editing programs. Have you ever wondered what something or someone actually looks like under all the manipulation? I'm Elise Hugh, and you might know me as the host of TED Talks Daily. This October, I am giving a TED Talk in Atlanta about finding true beauty in a sea of artificial images.

I'm so excited to share the stage with all the amazing speakers of the TED Next conference, and I hope you'll come and experience it with me. Visit go.ted.com slash TED Next to get your pass today. And we are back. On today's episode, we're talking about imposter syndrome with Aparna Nancherla.

Hi there, I'm Aparna Nancherla. I'm a comedian and the author of Unreliable Narrator, Me, Myself, and Imposter Syndrome. Aparna, you wrote a book about imposter syndrome, but what is imposter syndrome? So imposter syndrome, as I learned in writing the book, the technical definition is

The feeling that you are just a fraud or just undeserving of any success or things you've accomplished. And it's all due to kind of luck or chance and not any skill you possess. And you kind of this just persistent feeling that you're going to be found out by, you know, your peers or those around you for not having the capability that they think you do. And you talk about in the book how it's caused some like very real, like,

issues and mental struggles for you. It's also a term that I think a lot of people use kind of very casually, like, oh, I have imposter syndrome. So why do you think that is? I mean, I think that goes along with kind of a lot of things like kind of therapy speak has become increasingly

for lack of a better word, gentrified in our culture in that they just have become more shorthand for a bigger like umbrella things. Like if you're feeling sad, you're like, oh, I'm depressed today or something, you know, like it's just become a little diluted. And I think so imposter syndrome has kind of, I think, become an umbrella term for anything where you kind of feel out of place maybe or like you don't fit in or people are undervaluing you.

And I think it is targeted towards, you know, women and minorities. So in that sense, maybe it's like a term that can cover a lot of feelings of maybe not quite knowing how you fit in. And you talk about in the book, a joke that you love from the comedian Joshua Benowitz about how-

Cool people have gentrified the word awkward so that like actual awkward people like him no longer have something to use because like they call things awkward that are not awkward at all. He put it like beautifully because I do think these words get co-opted and then

I mean, I think it's very much a good thing that certain terms get pulled into the mainstream in terms of just being able to have, you know, more open conversations about mental illness and feelings that are typically associated with like shame or things we don't want to air in public. But yeah, I do think the other, the flip side of that is just once you bring something into like a broader spectrum, then the term itself becomes a little bit distorted from the original meaning.

Like it like now, if you say imposter syndrome, it might not always mean the technical definition when people are using it. I really love the book. I think it's so good. You walk a kind of a really difficult line in the book, which is you write about some really serious stuff and you talk about it without undercutting its seriousness. But then you also have moments of pure silliness and you talk about the kind of meta moments.

This ness of writing a book about feeling like you're an imposter, which is a thing that is a role that normally an expert would do right to like write it in. And so in some ways you're like, of course, you are an expert in this and you have so many things to say. But there's these feelings that get brought up by the very nature of writing a book about it that make you feel that imposter syndrome or Achilles. And you talk about that in the book.

like my full-time job is a comedian and like not taking things seriously or framing things in a sillier or more absurd way. But then I also have an undergrad psych major. And I think I do have like a very layman's background in, in doing a little bit of research and like reading an article and letting that inform me. So I think I, I,

I really leaned into any tiny background I have in the scientific inquiry process and was like, I'm going to figure this out. So when you think about the way that imposter syndrome intersects with your life and your work as a stand-up, you talk about in the book a lot of different places. And one of them is how you look and your sense about your appearance and fitting in. And you write about how you haven't really felt like you conformed.

You used to have a joke that you used to start sets with. That was something along the lines of like, I know, I'm also surprised that I'm a comedian. Yeah. I mean, I think part of it is just the, you know, luck or privilege of having gotten to do this as a career and kind of made a little bit more of a name for myself. But then I think on the other hand, I was just like, I don't.

I'm a little bit also doing myself a disservice by being like, yeah, I also am like, what the heck am I doing here? You know, like it is a way of kind of front and center airing your imposter syndrome out loud. But then I was like, am I in a way kind of setting the audience up to be like, prove yourself in a way that I don't need to be. It's a joke that...

worked for you with audiences, worked in the sense that they laughed. Yes. But that like if if I was to walk out on stage and say that joke, it wouldn't have worked because I think people wouldn't have been like they would have been like, why are we surprised that you're a comedian? You look exactly like 900 percent of comedians. Like that's not the thing. And so it's interesting to think in the chapter about your appearance, how you felt like you didn't conform to people's ideas, which often were like straight,

It did feel like a joke about external identity and stuff that, you know, you would know immediately upon physically seeing me. But there are also I think there's also something about my personality or how I present in terms of like, you know, not not.

not being like this loud, like boisterous, maybe a certain type of comedian energy that I was also kind of commenting on and saying that. So I have thought in the past, like, oh, I wonder if I was like my identity, but you know, maybe a more extroverted, like gregarious, bubbly kind of person with that joke have worked as well. Like sometimes I think it's like,

Yeah, more than just the external factors to have you come up with some new way of explaining that sense of like, maybe I don't always feel like I'm supposed to be here, but that feels more cohesive to who you are as a as a whole.

Yeah, I mean, I have a joke I do now where I'm like, a lot of comedians like to break the fourth wall where they kind of like really get with the audience. And I kind of pre-established that I'm like pretty uncomfortable with the audience leading up to the joke I say, which is like, I'm actually working on breaking the fifth wall, which is just that I abruptly stop talking and go home. So like, I sort of frame that I'm like, yeah,

I have a lot of, you know, ambivalence about being here, too. And in that way, like commenting not only on like if they feel weird that I'm a comedian, but I'm like, I also am like, what is this? Like, this is so weird in a way that's more personal to me. So if someone's listening and they're not a comedian, but they are dealing with these issues.

feelings of like being a fraud and really struggling with like the sense of belonging. What are some things that you found in your research or in your own life that they can do to help themselves to deal with imposter syndrome? Yeah, I mean, I think one big thing for me is just like talking about it with other people. Like I know that's probably well-trod advice in a lot of areas, but I do think

with a lot of feelings around imposter syndrome, whether that's shame or like doubting yourself, like it is, you kind of can create a vacuum where you're just like so convinced of your own incompetence. You just start like seeking evidence of it and it becomes a little bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. So I think it's,

the more you can get out of your head and like talk to other people and realize that a lot of people are either experiencing the same feelings or don't feel that way about you, it can be really helpful like reminders or just reframing of your own perspective. And, you know, therapy is always a great thing. I also think

now imposter syndrome has been like there's been more pushback against it. I think the term has proliferated in terms of just its usage and the way it's marketed as like some like the newest thing you can like fix about yourself. And I do think some of it maybe is more just like an institution not doing enough to like support who's there and like people who might not considerate

conform to who's been there in the past. So also remembering it might not just be an individual level problem at all is like really important in terms of like more systemic change. Yeah, you talk in the book, you have this moment where you're talking about being on a panel show, basically, where you're just chatting, you're not actually doing stand up. And you mentioned struggling with imposter syndrome. And then one of the hosts of the show just kind of lists off

Yeah, I mean, I would say the experience in the moment was horrifying. Like if someone just like reads your resume out loud.

during an interview, it is kind of excruciating, though I'm sure there is like a personality type out there that would love that, but not me. But yeah, I think it was like, if you are having like an actual debate with someone about your, you know, is Aparna an imposter or not? And then their side presents like, well, you've done this and this and this and this. It is like, it does feel like my brain's rebuttal would be like,

yeah, but she still sucks. You know, like, like it doesn't, it's quite not as strong an argument like out outside sometimes as it is in, in the confines of your brain. Yeah. I think about this a lot in the sense that like,

Even though I know it, it's hard to believe it, that it's so easy to see other people more accurately than it is to see myself. Like when I see a friend, I'm like, oh, the fact that you got rejected from one thing, that doesn't mean anything. You're going to be successful. And then when it's me, I'm like, they finally found me out. All the rejections from here on out, there never will be another acceptance. And like that feels real internally, even though I know when I talk to a friend who's going through that, I'm like, of course, that's not what that means. Right.

I think it's just because the way we relate to ourselves is so intuitive and like instinctive that we never think that like, you know, some impulse we have on how we read ourselves could ever be like incorrect or distorted because we're like, but it feels so real or it feels like beyond the intellectual, like rational side of things. Yeah.

You also talk in the book about this idea of a failure resume. And you write one. Can you explain that? Yeah. So I did this failure resume. I actually had this idea. I was like, what if I just make a resume of all the ways that I've failed, but kind of brag about in the way a resume does. But-

Then I looked it up on the internet. And of course, someone had already done it before. But it was like in more in the academic sphere, like someone had written a CV of like, you know, all the research grants they didn't get and all the yeah, all the their failures as a scientist and everything.

And so I was like, well, I guess I'm in a different field. I can do it and it will be different enough. And the funny thing is I cite the person who had done it previously in the science world. And then I listened to a podcast recently and someone cited the failure CB and it was someone else who did it. So I feel like it just that there is like become now a meta level of like everyone kind of doing this failure CB, but then maybe not.

crediting other people for it, which it just creates a whole nother level of failure. Yeah, to have failed at doing it, failed at doing the failure CV properly is a really great way to start your failure CV or failure resume. Yeah. But then it's funny because with the person, I guess, who originally did it, who I didn't even know about, they said it was like

of all the things they had done in their career, that was the thing that got the most traction, which was just like a funny thing to realize that people, because I, in, you know, in writing the book, I did a bunch of research on failure and like how it impacts us and how we internalize it. And it is like,

You know, when we fail, it is so threatening to our ego that we do kind of shut down and it does kind of impact our performance. But if we hear about other people's failures or like learn from their mistakes, we actually take in quite a lot and it like helps us quite a bit. So it's almost like an act of altruism to share your failures because you're like helping other people, maybe even more than yourself. Yeah.

So is that why you did the failure CV for yourself? I did it for myself because I also was just like, I think there are some rejections I've had in the past that I really felt like they really stuck with me in terms of like, oh, this really proves that you don't belong. And I was like, what if I just tell everyone about them? Like,

I don't know if that'll make them less triggering to me, but at least then they won't be secrets. So I think that's kind of where the seeds started. Once I wrote them down, I was kind of like, oh, yeah, who cares?

One of the interesting parts of a failure resume to me is that when I started to even think about what I would put down, I realized that the list was so kind of impossibly long. But that actually made me realize like, oh, these things don't matter, right? Like you can get rejected a hundred times before you get one job. Yeah. And I think the reason they stick with us is because we maybe in some cases are

are like so convinced of like, if I got this, like my life would then go this way and I would be on this path. And I also try to remind myself when I have gotten the things that doesn't happen. Like I'm the same person with the same like doubts going into that job and I'm like scared about it or scared again that they're going to find out I don't deserve to be there. So it's like...

I guess as I've gotten older, I just remember that like getting the thing is not going to necessarily like fix everything or even be what you wanted in the first place. Something that I have found really changes goals for me and makes them feel more attainable is to focus on what's in my control rather than what is out of my control, which is often getting picked. Right. So like if I say like I'm going to get a new job, right.

That's not actually totally in my control. But if I'm going to apply to a new job, that actually is in my control. And so I started at the beginning of the year when if I make like a list of goals for the year, I almost always include rejections. So like on my list right now for me personally is like I'm going to get 10 big rejections from places where that publish articles like I'm going to submit articles.

to big places and they're going to reject me. But if I get 10 rejections, that'll mean that I at least tried 10 times. Right. If I ever get my act together enough to make a list of goals, I'm going to do that. Yeah. Well, your first one can be, your first goal could be fail at making a list of goals and then you can check that one off. But that's so smart because it's true. There's like...

There are definitely going to be rejections. So to kind of even anticipate them is so smart. I have the feeling of like, if someone wasn't a fraud, they would be getting approached all the time. They wouldn't have to reach out. People would say like, will you do this exciting thing? Whereas I'm like begging, will you please let me do this thing? Like, will you let me write for you? Will you let me perform on your show? Will you let me do these things? And the narrative I have in my head, which I know is not true, is that like, that is the sign that you're a fraud. That like,

If you were real, they would just ask you. You wouldn't have to ask them. And so if I flip it around and I'm like, well, I'm going to just embrace that a little bit and I'm just going to get rejected from the things that a non-fraud would would have gotten offered. Got it. Yeah. And I think sometimes societally there we are so different.

enraptured by the idea of like success after success or just the person who just keeps winning or, and I think it does create this idea that there's some people that are just like chosen, you know, like they're undeniable or they like worked harder than the next person. And I don't, I think there is so much randomness and chance that's always involved and that we don't fully acknowledge the myth of the kind of like

They did it all themselves or like they pushed a little harder than the next person. Like we just, I think, love that idea, especially as Americans. And I think it just doesn't account for what it is to actually like live a human life. We're going to take a quick ad break here because that is how we live the podcast life. But we will be right back after this with more from Aparna. Aparna.

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There's also engineered air mesh on the upper side of the shoe that provides the right amount of stretch and structure. It'll turn everyday miles into everyday endorphins. That sounds good, right? Let's run there. Visit brook'srunning.com to learn more. Fast forward four decades, and on the heels of moderate success as a comedian, I still only warily accept I've accomplished anything or that I ever could again. I'm relieved I don't consider my continual breathing itself a fluke.

Eh, my lungs got lucky. There was an extra opening for oxygen intake. I'm aware that my self-image is distorted, but does it matter if I fully buy into it? Hello, fringe religions and small-batch cults. Sometimes it's almost like my imposter syndrome is the majority of me and the rest is my shadow.

That was a clip from Aparna Nancherla's audiobook, Unreliable Narrator. And as she discusses a lot in the book, even though Aparna has had a ton of documented career success, it doesn't always feel like that internally.

So Aparna, something that I've always really admired about you is that rather than waiting for gatekeepers or to be selected as the featured comic at a club or something like that, you've built this career on your own terms, often outside of the traditional stand-up comedy world, right? By using the internet or by performing in places that aren't comedy clubs. And I think that's really wonderful that you've like blazed your own trail. You know, I didn't quite feel like I fit what they wanted or were looking for. So I think I

tended to, when I was coming up, lean towards spaces that were kind of outside of that model. And I think I was lucky in that the internet kind of exploded as my

comedy career progressed and there were all these platforms where you could put up content. And I feel like I benefited from early days of Twitter where I could put a bunch of my jokes online and be noticed that way. And so I do think as I chose these sort of alternate venues, there became more opportunities. So I, again, got a little lucky in that sense, but I...

I decided like that model wasn't going to work for me or I just like didn't really understand the terms and how I could conform to them. So I was like, well, I guess I'll just do it a little differently and see what happens. Well, I think that the reason I bring it up is because it feels connected to imposter syndrome because it's like.

if you're listening, whatever your version of the comedy club is, right? Like maybe it's like, oh, I'm supposed to go to this specific type of academic institution or I'm supposed to work at this prestigious company or I'm supposed to have this type of house or this type of partner, you know, whatever the box is that you're supposed to fit in.

There's this sense where if you don't fit into that box or that box isn't working for you or you can't get in for any reason, that then like, well, there's no way to have success. And so how do you...

in that moment be like, I'm going to just kind of do my own thing and it's going to be okay. Like, what do you tell yourself? I realized for me, like certain comedy show environments, like certain types of clubs and stuff, they just like made me feel bad more than good. Like, I think you have to, at some point, just be able to take those risks and be okay with knowing that it might

you know, in the short term or maybe even like in the foreseeable future, not necessarily be like assured great decision or like the right decision, but know that it kind of fits what your intuition is telling you.

Well, I feel compelled to do this because we're talking about imposter syndrome and you wrote a book about imposter syndrome to just tell you that you're doing a really great job right now. And this is a great interview. And you are giving the advice that a wise and established expert would give, which is who you are. So if you're not feeling that, it is actually true and happening from the outside, just so you know, internally. Oh, no. The oh, no, that's not what you wanted to hear, huh?

Yeah, I'm so bad. I'm still like practicing as a human, like learning to take a compliment or be like praised in sort of any kind of public format. I'm just like, well, yeah,

OK, I guess you can say that. Like, but no, thank you. That's very nice. It'd be hilarious if you just ended this interview now. You're like, that's it. I'm out. Yeah. Walk out of the interview. They're like interviewee walks out due to excessive praise. Yeah. Was offended by being complimented. Walked out. This interview is over. You can't treat me like that.

So there's some really serious parts of your book, obviously, but there's also some really funny parts where you talk about like ways that you've dealt with the idea of imposter syndrome and like the feeling that you're the only one who is making it up and is faking your way through it. And one that made me laugh a lot is you play a party game where when you're at a party, you try and drop a word that you made up and see what

if anyone will even say anything about it. I haven't done this as of recent as much, but sometimes I'll just like slip in a word that I kind of made up that it's not like, it can't sound too silly, but it, you know, it sounds like S-A-T word adjacent or something. And then I just see if anyone kind of like asks like, oh, what does that mean? Or is that a word? And, you know, no one ever challenges it. I think they're either like,

to seem dumb or yeah, they're like, oh, I guess everyone else knows what this word means. So I'm not going to say anything. And I've, I've been that person, you know, on the other side of things where everyone's like talking about a movie I haven't seen. And I just am like, oh yeah, that movie's great. You know, I fully don't know what anyone is talking about. So I think it is a little, just the,

micro social experiment of how we all are just trying to like keep up with everyone else. Can you help us generate a few right now so that, you know, people, if they're struggling to come up with their own word, like what are some good fake words that sound real that people can just like toss into conversation there? I think the one in the book is furnicious. Furnicious. Yes. It's a very furnicious exercise and furnicious is great. Yeah. It can't be like too silly. Cause like if I try to think of one right now, they're going to be like too silly. Like I was thinking of like, um,

Brad-icide? Yeah, that feels like it actually. I believe 100% that is the real act of killing a brat. Yeah, I was thinking of like plungeant. Oh, plungeant's great. There's also words that are just created all the time by the media, you know, or like slacktivism or like there's always words being generated by the internet like every second. So you're just like, maybe people are also now just like, oh, that's probably a word. I just didn't read the latest like, you know,

Twitter storm or whatever it is. Yeah. A way that this comes up for me a lot is I've read a word, but I've never heard it said out loud. And then I'm like, oh, maybe that's the thing. Like, I remember being 100% sure, 1000% sure that M-A-C-A-B-R-E was pronounced Macabre.

And then I heard someone say macabre and I was like, macabre? What is macabre? I remember I had a friend. Now I can't remember who it was, but she had always pronounced misled, mizeled. Yeah.

That's really good. I don't know why. I was like, what? Like, how could you? And she was just like, I don't know. That's how I read it. Yeah, I knew someone from my high school who was like, if not the top of the class, extremely close to the top of the class. Yeah. Very well read. And he was positive that the word prima donna,

was P-R-E dash Madonna. And he thought it was like, it meant like you're a big diva because it's like before Madonna, like he had this whole explanation in his head for why it was like, oh yeah, she's a pre-Madonna. She's before Madonna. And then when he learned that it was not that, he was truly shocked. Wow. I kind of want that word to exist though, as he imagined it. Like it feels like a very incisive way to talk about pop history. Yeah.

Yeah. But, you know, it all goes back to this idea of like we're all in some ways trying to like look around and see, you

Hey, does everyone else know what's going on here? Totally. Do I fit in? Have I been saying this thing wrong the whole time? Have I been acting wrong? Am I been like living my whole life wrong? To pivot a little bit here and to talk about something significantly more serious. I think that at least for me, when I first think about the concept of imposter syndrome, it mostly comes

registers to me as being like professional success or like I don't belong in this. But I think you make a really compelling case in the book that that sense of being a fraud or of not belonging or of, you know, having somehow faked your way that it's not just professional. It can be about, you know, our body image. It can also be about illness. You know, you have a chapter where you talk about this sense of dealing with

really acute mental illness, but also having this weird feeling of like, oh, I'm not really a depressed person. Like I don't deserve to use the title of having depression because this isn't how a quote unquote depressed person would behave or this isn't how they would feel. The murky thing about like, yeah, especially mental illness. It's like everyone, you know, there are things like a constant

constellation of terms that everyone might associate with like depression or anxiety or like bipolar disorder, like schizophrenia. But I, I do feel like everyone's experience of them on an individual level can still vary so much that it, it can be hard to, to know, like, if

if you're kind of completely fits the model of like what it's supposed to look like. So I think the tricky thing, especially with having like a anxious depressive brain is you're already like prone to kind of doubting yourself or undervaluing yourself or thinking like your thoughts are maybe not as, you know, valid as compared to other people's. So

then to then question your own mental illness kind of feels like, of course you would. But it is, yeah, it is interesting to me that like the scales of depression in our society, it's like you have to kind of be the person who can't get out of bed to be considered like an actual depressed person. Whereas I feel like a lot of my depression has been me living a life, but just like having a really hard time internally for a lot of it. Yeah.

There's this interesting kind of paradox where you talk about like, on the one hand, you have to trust your own emotions and your own thoughts. But on the other hand, when you are in a really bad mental space, you have to question those thoughts too, to be like what my brain is telling me about myself isn't true. So you both have to like push back and believe and that's gonna be a really difficult balance to strike.

Yeah. And I think especially with things like depression or anxiety, it's like you just as a human, your moods are going to fluctuate. So it's like even if you're a well balanced, like healthy person, you're going to have days where you feel a little more down compared to, you know, another day where you're feeling a little more upbeat and.

Like sometimes when I, you know, have had my meds working and things are pretty stable and like I feel like I'm able to function pretty well. Then if I suddenly have a day where I'm feeling down, I instead of just being like, oh, you're just having like a day where you're a little bit in the blues. Like I'm just like, oh, my God, is the depression coming back? Like it does make you question yourself sometimes a little more internally. And I think, yeah, that leads back to those thoughts.

self-doubt feelings. What kind of progress have you made on your own imposter syndrome over the course of this book? And also just, you know, the years that you, between when you started it and now? Yeah. I mean, I, I wouldn't say it's gone or fixed, but I, I do think I've just

come to understand it more as a part of myself rather than all of myself. And, and kind of, it has its own role of, of what it wants to play in terms of like, I think maybe keeping me small or like trying to make sure I stack up with everyone else is a very human, you know, desire to just like fit in and know what everyone else is doing. So I just try to remember that it is, it

coming from like a healthier self-preserving place and then it just you know is a bit of a like control freak or like a micromanager and that it wants to take over everything and be like actually you don't know what you're doing and you should really like go away or whatever it is like I try to remember it is like a piece of me but it it sometimes has some like ideas that maybe aren't great.

I feel like the title of your book is the perfect summary of that, right? It's an unreliable narrator. Yes. Yes. Well, I genuinely felt like this was such a helpful book and so funny and really meaningful. And I know that people are going to really get a lot from it. So it's really it's fantastic. Oh, thanks, Chris. Well, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for doing this. It's been great talking to you. Thanks for having me. Thanks for reading the book.

That is it for today's episode of How to Be a Better Human. Thank you so much to today's guest, Aparna Nancherla. Her book, Unreliable Narrator, Me, Myself, and Imposter Syndrome is available for pre-order now. Special thanks to Penguin Random House Audio for the clips from Aparna's audiobook.

I am your host, Chris Duffy, and you can find more from me, including my weekly newsletter and upcoming live shows at chrisduffycomedy.com. How to Be a Better Human is brought to you on the Ted side by Daniela Bellarezzo, Chloe Shasha Brooks, and Banban Cheng, a team so impressive that even when I doubt myself, I never doubt them. Every episode of our show is professionally fact-checked, and you can trust that that means today you had a fully reliable narrator. That is thanks to Julia Dickerson,

and Mateus Salas. On the PRX side, our show is put together by a group of people so absurdly talented that I would actually completely believe it if you told me that they had been assembled solely for the purpose of pranking me. Because how else could you assemble a dream team this incredible? Morgan Flannery, Noor Gill, Patrick Grant, and Jocelyn Gonzalez. And of course, thanks to you for listening to our show and making this all possible.

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