Creator Interview: What You Think About, You Bring About

Author Matthew Lucchetti shares his incredible health journey and path to publication.

Have you ever heard of the Reticular Activating System, or RAS? It’s the key to noticing massive opportunities in your life – and it’s the topic of a chapter in the bestselling book, “Healthy Thinking, Happy Life: Master Your Mindset and Get $#it Done!”

Matthew Lucchetti, mindset expert, coach, executive chef and entrepreneur, discusses the RAS, along with his journey to better health and incredible success, in Healthy Thinking, Happy Life.

In the book, Lucchetti describes how the RAS, a neural network at the base of our brainstem, controls our flight or flight systems, our states of sleeping and waking, and our autonomic systems, including breathing.

The RAS is that important to our lives.

Equally important, it helps us filter information we need to know. If our RAS doesn’t deem it important, it will get lost in the background noise. Training your RAS to recognize what’s important to you to help you achieve your goals is a key to success. Most high performers understand this, even if they don’t call the RAS by name.

For Lucchetti, mastering this power led him on a path to becoming a car-earning champion with 30,000 in total monthly sales volume for a community-based marketing company, public speaking opportunities, and the chance to co-author a book on mindset.  

He shares his story with Geek Travel Guide to help others learn, grow, and connect. We hope Matt’s story and advice inspires you as much as it has countless others.

You talk about this in the book, of course. But can you tell us a little about personal health journey, how you lost more than 65 pounds and now are helping other people achieve their health and fitness goals?

I married my high school sweetheart after I graduated college with a degree in culinary arts as a chef. Unfortunately, that life in food service led to a life of unhealthiness and being overweight. I wound up with a few medical conditions related to weight.

Stress in the food industry was high. At the end of the day, I didn’t take care of myself. I ate terribly. Whether it was high-quality foods that I ate too much of or just grabbing fast food on the way home, I was 280 lbs. at my heaviest. I’m only 5-foot-6-and a-half.

Fast-forward to a new career in sales and a different lifestyle. My grandmother, who was a very important person in my life, lived to be 103 years old. I made a promise to her that I was going to outlive her. The only way to do that is take control of your health.

When I was 49 years old, I decided I was going to make a change and be healthy. So, right before the pandemic, I bought a Peloton bike. It was March 2020. I started living a ketogenic lifestyle due to seeing a few friends having success with it.

I ran into some influencers on social media throughout the Peloton community. That introduced me to therapeutic exogenous ketones, a fantastic supplement that helped me to take control of my fat loss.

I joined the company – Pruvit – as an entrepreneur to help others, because I was so passionate about it. It gave me the opportunity for not just better health, but the opportunity to start a community-based marketing business. I was able to build a team and work with other entrepreneurs to help guide people toward better health.

I lost 65+ pounds, myself. More energy. More focus. Better mood.

This company invests in its people. Pruvit events, like our end-of-year celebration, EPIK!, deliver some of the greatest thought leaders in mindset, marketing, productivity and psychology to attendees.

As a mentor and a team leader within the Pruvit community, I started to read more and learn more, and develop my own mindset and start to meditate and believe in “what you think about you bring about.” That led me to contributing to the book Healthy Thinking, Happy Life.

Can you share the story of exactly how you got the opportunity to contribute to this book? 

It started with my newfound interest for sharing my story on social media, sharing my passion for mindset. A good friend of mine from first grade reached out to me. We’ve been in contact over the years, thankfully, through social media and Facebook. Denise Stegall authored a few books and now wanted to publish her own. She offered me the opportunity to write a chapter on mindset.

Looking back, I never would have thought this was possible. I was shocked by the offer, and excited and nervous at the same time.

At the end of the day, if I’m out there talking about mindset and belief and manifestation and the thought that anything is possible, how could I deny myself this opportunity to contribute to a book? I’m glad I said yes!

You bring up an important point about how your long-term friendship with Denise led to this opportunity. Pretty much every opportunity we all have in life comes from relationships. What advice do you have when it comes to relationship building?

I have a true belief that everybody is watching. And the more you get yourself out there, the more people will be watching. If you have something important, something you’re passionate about, to speak or write about, and it comes from the heart, I believe everyone has the possibility of getting followers.

At the end of the day, when you put yourself out there, you attract people. Matt Lucchetti, pre-2020, had a different mindset. I wasn’t open to accepting some of these things that are possible. Manifestation wasn’t something I truly believed in. Meditation and working out on a daily basis wasn’t something I believed in, either.

Relationships – and networking – bring you to your next path and your next destination and no one knows what that is. But you have to be open to what that next step is. Sometimes you’ll fail and sometimes you’ll succeed, but every one of those opportunities is going to bring you to your next opportunity.

Can you talk a little about your chapter, What You Think About You Bring About? What’s this RAS you mention?

Your mind has something called the “Reticular Activating System,” that brings certain things into a higher focus.

I use this example: You might be shopping for a car and all of a sudden you fall in love with a Hyundai Kona. You say, “This is unique. I don’t see these too often. I want to get this car.”

And then on your way home from the dealership, you start seeing Hyundai Konas everywhere. You start thinking, “I just bought the car that everybody else has!”

Those Konas have always been there as you were driving your old vehicle. But it wasn’t something that stuck out to you.

My chapter also talks about my health background, and how when I started to focus on what I wanted, things started happening. The book is an example of that.

I never really thought about writing a book, except maybe a cookbook. But at the end of the day, I spent so much time reading the work of others, Denise brought this opportunity to me.

Now I can consider myself an Amazon bestseller in Men’s Health book author. That’s something at 52 years old I never would have imagined.

The one person I wish would have seen it happen, is not here, but I know she sees it. I wouldn’t have been able to write it without her influence – that’s my grandma.

You hit #1 Amazon bestseller in Men’s Health, I think, on the second day. What have you been doing to promote the book?

I’ve just been sharing it on social media, sharing it with my family, reaching out to people and letting them know I was part of this.

Again, using my platform and the platforms of others I’ve influenced along the way who are sharing this book on stories and reels. I’ve sent a few copies to people who have impressed me and helped me along the way.

You started your Facebook community as part of your network marketing business. Can you talk about how it has evolved?

I selfishly started my Facebook group and building my platform to keep myself accountable. I’m grateful to all the people who listened to me and gave me a platform on social media to make a difference not just in their lives, but in my life.

I never imagined that it would turn into thousands of followers and group members, and the chance to meet and connect with people from all over the country.

There are people I just met recently and now can consider them some of my best friends. Plus, I was able to nurture relationships with people I’d known. You and I have lived in the same town for a long time, knew of each other, but over the past two and a half years have become more than business partners, but friends, and someone I consider family.

What surprised you the most about the process of contributing to a book?

I guess I always had a love/hate relationship with writing. I wasn’t the greatest student. I went to vocational school because I had that love for cooking.

I didn’t have a great relationship with the learning or writing process. Finding the right people and being able to do what I do now, because I have grown. Public speaking is something I’ve gotten good at.

I think the key was finding someone who was able to help me get my thoughts on paper, and then get that paper to the publisher, with a lot less edits coming back than I would have imagined.

I was surprised when the editor got back to me, there weren’t that many tweaks. That was exciting to me.

Also, I thought it would be a daunting process, like years, to get this stuff off the ground. But I guess with Denise’s experience, taking the leap into publishing and working with the right people, combined with how the industry has changed with print-on-demand publishing, it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be.

“I can’t,” became an “I can” really quickly.

What advice would you have for other first-time authors – or really, any entrepreneur?

Just do it would be the first thing. It’s such a cliché.

Stop that imposter syndrome, which happens to so many of us. When we have something uncomfortable thrown our way, it’s so much easier to throw up that block and defense and say “I can’t,” and “I won’t,” and shy away.

To be honest, my first conversation with Denise went that way. “I appreciate you asking me, but I don’t know why you are.” She had to reel me back in.

Then I spoke to someone else and told them I was given this opportunity. And they said, “Yeah, you can do this.”

Believe in yourself and find someone else who’s going to believe in you and push you to the limits.

Anything is possible if you believe it’s possible and you open your mind to believing it’s possible.

Continue to find ways to make it possible. They will appear in front of you. Sometimes what is presented leads you to what is possible.

At the end of the day, my health journey led me to a product, that led me to a community, that led me to a friend of mine from first grade, to put this offer on the table to me to become an author. That path sounds crazy.

But without that path happening, and me sharing my journey and my mindset tricks, Denise wouldn’t have needed me in her Healthy Thinking, Happy Life book.

What’s next for Matt Lucchetti?

One opportunity will now lead to another and another. Maybe the opportunity to co-write this book could lead to other opportunities, a TV appearance, or on a stage again.

What I talk about in the book is a stage appearance in Florida for a mastermind retreat with Pruvit.  I was new in the business, and it was right after I became a Rank 6, car-earning Champ in the company. I was asked to speak to a couple of hundred people.

That’s what gave me the confidence to write about the topic. I spoke about it for 35 minutes, and I had their attention. I had their laughs and I had their cries. I had all the emotions. That’s when you know you’re connecting with the audience.

To get that story onto paper, now, makes it possible for people to forever read it. And that’s just a blessing to me.

Portions of this article appeared at DMCWriter.com and in the SPARREW Newsletter. It is reprinted with permission.