GUY RAZ, HOST:

Now if Elyn Saks has been successful in spite of her mental illness, performer Joshua Walters has been successful because of his. He gave this TED talk in New York.

(SOUNDBITE OF JOSHUA WALTERS TED TALK)

JOSHUA WALTERS: My name is Joshua Walters. I'm a performer but as far as being a performer, I'm also diagnosed bipolar. I reframe that as a positive because the crazier I get on stage, the more entertaining I become. When I was 16 in San Francisco, I had my breakthrough manic episode in which I thought I was Jesus Christ. Maybe you thought that was, you know, scary but actually there's no amount of drugs you can take that can get you as high as if you think you're Jesus Christ.

(LAUGHTER)

WALTERS: I was sent to a place - a psych ward; and in the psych ward, everyone is doing their own one-man show.

(LAUGHTER)

WALTERS: There's no audience like this, to justify their rehearsal time.

(LAUGHTER)

WALTERS: They're just practicing. One day they'll get here.

(LAUGHTER)

WALTERS: Now, when I got out, I was diagnosed; and I was given medications by a psychiatrist. OK, Josh why don't we give you some - why don't we give you some, give you some Zyprexa, OK? At least, that's what it says on my pen.

(LAUGHTER)

WALTERS: Some of you are on the field, I can see. I can feel your noise.

The first half of high school was the struggle of the manic episode, and the second half was the overmedications of these drugs, where I was sleeping through high school. The second half was just one big nap, pretty much, in class. And when I got out, I had a choice. I could either deny my mental illness or embrace my mental skillness(ph). (Makes trumpet sound)

(LAUGHTER)

WALTERS: There's a movement going on right now to reframe mental illness as a positive, at least the hypomanic edge part of it. Now, if you don't know what hypomania is, it's like an engine that's out of control - maybe a Ferrari engine with no brakes. Many of the speakers here, many of you in the audience have that creative edge, if you know what I'm talking about. You're driven to do something that everyone has told you is impossible. And there's a book - John Gartner - John Gartner wrote this book called "The Hypomanic Edge," in which Christopher Columbus and Ted Turner and Steve Jobs and all these business minds have this edge to compete.

A different book was written not too long ago, in the mid-'90s, called - called "Touch with Fire," by Kay Redfield Jamison, in which it was looked at in a creative sense; in which Mozart and Beethoven and Van Gogh all had this manic depression that they were suffering with. Some of them committed suicide. So it wasn't all the good side of the illness.

WALTERS: Now, recently there has been development in this field. And there was an article written in The New York Times, September 2010, in which investors were looking for entrepreneurs that had this kind of spectrum, if you know what I'm talking about. Not - maybe - full bipolar, but they were in the bipolar spectrum where on one side, maybe you think you're Jesus; and on the other side, maybe they just make you a lot of money. Your call. Your call.

WALTERS: And everyone's somewhere in the middle. Everyone's somewhere in the middle. So maybe, you know, there's no such thing as crazy. And being diagnosed with a mental illness doesn't mean you're crazy. But maybe it just means you're more sensitive to what most people can't see or feel. Maybe no one's really crazy, but everyone is just a little bit mad. How much depends on where you fall on the spectrum. How much depends on how lucky you are. Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

RAZ: Performer Joshua Walters, at his New York TED talk.

(SOUNDBITE OF CLASSICAL MUSIC)

RAZ: In just a moment, writer Jon Ronson takes the psychopath test. Our show today, "The Unquiet Mind." I'm Guy Raz. You're listening to the TED Radio Hour, from NPR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.