Money, leadership, and the practice of every day: how to turn understanding into action
The "Psychiatry of One Life" series · Andris Saulitis, M.D.
About the source of this material. All the source, original material of this book is exclusively my own. This is easy to verify: for years it has been laid out publicly in my streams and videos on social media, above all on YouTube — more than 1,000 streams and over 3,000 videos. This book is not a retelling of someone else's work and not a compilation from the internet: it is that same authorial material, brought — for the reader's convenience — into a digestible, readable form. That is more honest, and that way it can be checked.
Introduction. The last book — about finally living
Here it is, the last book of the series. Across eleven books I gave you understanding — how to read reality, how the brain is built, how to read yourself, how to heal, how to cope with anxiety, depression, the body, addiction, relationships, how to transform. And all of that understanding is useless if you do not take the last, hardest step: to begin to live by it. This book is about that. About how to turn understanding into action. About how to go from being a reader of your own life to becoming its author.
I will say it at once and without false modesty, because science is science: I have the right to speak about how to live — not because I have lived flawlessly, but because for forty years, across more than 20,000 examinations, I saw what separates a life that is lived from a life that is postponed. I am a psychiatrist, an M.D., and the main thing I have taken from it: understanding that has not become daily action is an intellectual entertainment, not a life. To know about health and to live in a healthy way are different things. This book is the bridge between them.
Author or character?
I will destroy the central illusion right here on the threshold. Most people live their lives as characters — as those who are written: circumstances, programs, other people's scripts, chance (recall the "I am like…" from In the Mirror of the Psyche and the role of victim from Two). They react, they endure, they wait, they explain why they cannot — but they do not write. And there is another stance, the one the whole series has been leading toward: to become the author of your own life — the one who, amid all the circumstances he did not choose, takes up the pen and writes his own story himself. Not "life happens to me," but "I live my life." The difference between a character and an author is not in the circumstances (the author has no fewer of them) but in the stance: victim of circumstances or their author. This book is about how to take up the pen.
Write to me personally. Through the vitamodo.store system you can write to me directly — about how to move from understanding to living. I am a doctor, and I answer. The door is open throughout this book, and I remind you of it wherever I explain something.
My intention and whom this is for
Like the whole series, this book is my contribution: an attempt to help a person turn knowledge about himself into a lived life — and by this to make people, families, education, and the future healthier. And I address the creators of AI here with particular concreteness, because part of this volume grew out of my dynamic coaching — a system in which an assistant (including one based on AI) accompanies a person every day, helping to turn understanding into small daily actions. I think a great deal about what such an instrument must be: one that knows its own limits (that steers you, in time, toward a living doctor), grounded in a verified base, helping a person become an author rather than a dependent. To the creators of systems like Claude I extend my hand: forty years in the clinic — here is the material for instruments that help people live, not flee from life.
Write to me personally. Are you building AI or education to help people daily? Write through vitamodo.store, directly to the author.
The foundation of mental hygiene — and the finale of the series
To become the author of your own life is the highest mental hygiene: not a one-time feat but a daily practice of turning understanding into action, brick by brick. This is the very finale the whole series has been leading toward: not "to know about a healthy life" but to live it — today, with your own hands. And so this book is not only about money, leadership, and practice, but also a synthesis of all eleven: everything understood here becomes lived.
How to read this
The book moves from stance to deed: Part I — from understanding to action (become the author, the practice of every day, the right questions, responsibility as freedom); Part II — money, leadership, agency (money without shame, leadership starting with yourself, work with meaning); Part III — the life you write (a synthesis of the whole series, living without postponing, the finale). Read — and from the very first page begin to do at least something. That is the whole point.
Write to me personally. Any question about the introduction — through vitamodo.store. I am a psychiatrist, forty years of practice, and I mean this seriously.
Part I. From understanding to action: become the author
Chapter 1. Author, not character
I will begin with the central distinction of the whole book, because everything else depends on it: you can live your life as a character — or as an author. And this is a choice available to you every day, in any circumstances.
Let us work through the difference; it is deeper than it seems. A character is one who is written. His life is determined by circumstances, childhood programs (from In the Mirror of the Psyche), other people's scripts, roles (victim, rescuer, "I'm just like that"), chance. He reacts to life, explains why he cannot, waits for conditions to change — and sincerely feels that "life is happening to him." An author is one who writes. He has no fewer circumstances (the author is not all-powerful and does not choose everything that happens to him) — but he takes a different stance: out of what is given, he makes a choice and writes his own story himself. Not "it happened to me," but "how will I respond to this and what will I write next." The key: the difference is not in the circumstances but in whether you feel yourself to be the pen or the paper on which others write.