Joshua Walters is a bipolar comedian who also is active as an educator in mental health. During his talk on TED, he tells the audience about his manic experience in high school that lead to a choice: "I could either deny my mental illness or embrace my mental skillness."

Walters in his talk mentions an article in the New York Times entitled, Just Manic Enough: Seeking Perfect Entrepreneurs. The Times article talks about Seth Priebatsch, an entrepreneur who was looking for some venture capital.

So, what do you give this guy — a big check or the phone number of a really good shrink? If he is Seth Priebatsch and you are Highland Capital Partners, a venture capital firm in Lexington, Mass., the answer is a big check.

But this thought exercise hints at a truth: a thin line separates the temperament of a promising entrepreneur from a person who could use, as they say in psychiatry, a little help. Academics and hiring consultants say that many successful entrepreneurs have qualities and quirks that, if poured into their psyches in greater ratios, would qualify as full-on mental illness.

Others here at Psych Central have talked about how what some deem as an illness instead becomes an asset. The key is to be just crazy enough.

http://www.ted.com/talks/joshua_walt...zy_enough.html
http://www.ted.com/speakers/joshua_walters.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/bu...pagewanted=all

An interesting topic with an alternative viewpoint.

[addcolin]

Hi TheByzantine

Yeah, therapy should be about getting us to a point of being just crazy enough to become great Entrepreneurs etc.
That would 'fit' better, than just making another part for the 'machine'!
Cheers

[Fresia]

Thanks for this, TheB. I appreciated the way Walters reframed thinking about this as there are positive attributes but sometimes it is easier to focus on the negatives. It is true about the sensitivities as well. How lucky we are...hmmm, something to consider.

[elliemay]

I am a scientist and I can proudly say that this field is littered with people who are just crazy enough - including myself.

A lot of people think science is a dry, boring occupation filled with beakers, logic, and lots of equations and crap on white erase boards.

It isn't. It is a creative, vital, dynamic vocation and some of the breakthroughs have come at the hands of people who fall slightly out of the gaussian distribution of sanity. It's fun. Everyday is different.

I work with them everyday. The single-minded, the twitchy, the aspergerish, the depressed. Underpinning all that is a strange kind of genius that has helped a lot of people.

Make no mistake, we do carry a burden. Depression can wreak havoc on your CV, but it is manageable. We have fights, fail to communicate with each other on so many levels, and there is a lot of pacing.

Meetings are hilarious because most of us either can't speak, can't sit still, blurt out wild ideas, or are just overtly antagonistic. I work with a gentlemen who has to whistle "if i only had a brain" everyday, all day. Another has slap a part of his body (usually his legs) to manage stress.

Somehow though, we manage to support ourselves, move the field forward and muddle through.

There is a lot of cursing, mumbling and coffee.