TrueLife - Nikola Straka - 3 Steps Ahead of Everyone, Web Design, Psychology, & Performance Enhancing Drugs

Episode Date: June 8, 2023

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US🚨🚨Curious about the future of psychedelics? Imagine if Alan Watts started a secret society with Ram Dass and Hunter S. Thompson… now open the door. Use Promocode TRUELIFE for Get 25% off monthly or 30% off the annual plan For the first yearhttps://www.district216.com/www.mushroomwriting.comInstead of writing about everything, my main focus is on Psychedelic Therapy, Mushrooms (not only the trippy ones), and Psychedelics in general. You know how they say “It’s better to do one thing well than ten things poorly.” That’s why I always stick to my fields of expertisePsychedelic Content WritingIf your goal is to be seen in search engines, with content that holds the attention of the readers. Carefully crafted, accurate, and authentic psychedelic content will make your blog stand out from the crowd. Nevertheless, you need someone who knows how to write, is passionate about psychedelics, and understands your brand’s voice!Mushroom Content WritingAs a mushroom grower, I experienced a lot of ups and downs and I consider myself to be an expert in this field. Writing strategy does more than just rank your website on the first page. It makes your content appealing to the reader, who will gladly share it with friends, thus you will appear directly in front of your potential customers.I’ve been working in the field of internet marketing for 5 years now, and from all the tasks that my job had to offer, I found my true passion in writing.The great thing about my internet marketing carrier was that I have learned how to use SEO properly and my content can be seen all around the world!    I have decided to switch solely to writing SEO content since it combines two things, writing (that I love) and being seen on search engines! One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USCheck out our YouTube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzfOaFtA1hF8UhnuvOQnTgKcIYPI9Ni9&si=Jgg9ATGwzhzdmjkg

Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear. Fearist through ruins maze, lights my war cry, born from the blaze.

The poem is Angels with Rifles, the track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Serafini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life podcast. I hope everybody's having a beautiful day. You know, it never ceases to amaze me the way in which psychedelics and theogens have this ability. to reach across borders, to connect people. And today we got a great guest for you, a great show. Nicholas Straca coming from Belgrade, Serbia,

a freelance writer, SEO, and copyright specialist. He's a content creator with a focus on psychedelics and in Theogens. He's well versed in the nuance of this unique niche and has created a large swath of educational, entertaining, and exotic blog post, articles, and website content. In addition to his passion for psychedelics and mushrooms, He's also familiar with graphic design, cannabis, and PEDs. Nicola, I want to say congratulations, man, on taking the reins after writing SEO and doing so much for so many other people.

You started writing for your own brand, man. So first off, congratulations. Thanks for being here. How you doing today? Thank you so much, George, for having me on your podcast. It's truly a privilege to be a part of True Life podcast. I'm doing fantastic. How about you?

I'm doing great. man. It's amazing how your life can unfold when you begin to stand up with the courage it takes to be yourself. And I'm stoked for you, bro. I know that you've been writing for all these people. I know that you've been putting your heart into soul into making so many people's projects better. And now all of a sudden you're like, you know what? What am I doing this for everybody for? What am I doing for myself, man? Maybe you can talk about a little bit about your background and how you made that move. Well, I started with internet marketing about five years ago. It was something like building affiliate websites and that's where I basically gathered all the knowledge.

And I started working with other people and my current clients, let's say about a year and a half, for example. I just figured out that I could put this knowledge in good space, like a psychedelic space, which is really my passion, and that's where I truly excel. Yeah. What do you think it is about the psychedelic space that kind of captured your heart that kind of drew you to it? Man, was it a personal experience? Was it a transformation you saw happening? What do you think is that relationship there?

It's definitely a personal experience. Yeah. multiple experiences, I must say. Basically, every time I did psychedelics, I had really, really breakthrough experience that affected my life an incredible way. And that's when, that was the moment when I fell in love with me.

It's such a good way to put it. I think that a lot of people, they use words like transformational, or they use words like, I had an epiphon. but I think to say that I fell in love with it is a great way to describe it. Maybe you can share one of those experiences, man. Yeah, sure.

Well, my first psychedelic experience with mushrooms wasn't actually that profound. I was really young and dumb, and I don't know what was I expecting, but from that point on, it just got better. First time I really felt the change was after my second psychedelic experience. I was still young. I was maybe 19, but it pushed me to go finish college and to change my life. You know, I was working some crappy jobs and I just didn't like it. I didn't see a way how I can change those kind of things.

and it served, I can say, like a guidance for my future. Yeah. Yeah, by integrating the experience. I, but at that point, I didn't even know what was integration exactly, but I somehow did it myself. And now when I'm much more aware about stuff that are going on, this, it just flows even better. Yeah, I agree 100%.

On some level, it gives you this insight into who you are and what you're doing. And you get this little voice in your head or maybe you see signs out of the corner of your eye, like these little guideposts or signs like, I don't know if that's right. Or sometimes it's just this intuition. Like you get this feeling like, man, I got to make a change over here. I don't like that. Or sometimes you get to see things in other people that help you become a better version of yourself. It's fascinating to me.

So you were working with SEO. Maybe for some people who may not know what SEO is or, you know, how people get noticed on the internet. Maybe you can, before we get into how you're doing things, maybe you can tell people what it is that you do and why it's important. So basically, SEO is search engine optimization. Without it, your website will probably be unseen on the Internet since there is billions of websites online and optimizing. websites is just necessity today. And I figured out how it works while I was working on my affiliate sites and that made me push it even harder. Yeah. So some of the techniques you use for SEO is like do you go into like Google Analytics or do you start using a keyword search or is

there like a formula that you use? Not necessarily, but it's basically. Basically, keywords are important, really. Right. Monitoring Google Analytics and Google Search Console tool is a must for White Hat SEO. There are multiple kinds of SEO. I will just divide them into two separate groups. It's Black Hat and White Hat. Black Hat is something what Google doesn't want, and it's punishable.

If they caught you doing it, they did caught me multiple times. It's like rinse and repeat for us. But White Cat SEO takes longer time, but it's more sustainable in the long run. Right. And that's what I'm using now for my clients because nobody wants to get shut down after a year of hard work. Yeah. Yeah. Do you think it matters?

I'm sure you would never do what I'm about to say because you're all, you're white hat. But however, if someone were a black hat and they were using SEO and they had their own server, would Google still be able to shut them down? Probably, probably. I really can't tell, but probably. I mean, I still use some black cat SEO techniques today, but for my personal uses, I don't. I don't want to put other people in danger of getting shut out. Absolutely.

It's good to know everything because it's detrimental that you can separate what's good and what's not good. What should be done at what shouldn't. You know, it's interesting. I think that when we talk about black hat or white hat in SEO and Google, you can kind of see it in the psychedelic space. Like on some levels, like if we use cannabis, like, let's just. just say we use cannabis. And in the United States, we have, you know, it's kind of becoming legalized in some places.

So you have some big people that are using cannabis, but you still have like MS-13 and you got your guys on the street teams that are out pushing on the corners and stuff. Guys on the corners, dude, they got their own system and they can sell lots of product. The guys that are, you know, sort of in the camp of pharmaceuticals have their own methods. But it's the same thing. It's just different methods, you know. So it's interesting to see how different black hat, white, hat emerges not only in internet, not only in cannabis, but in psychedelics and probably throughout

the world, right? There's above board and below board, but both of them kind of merge a little bit, and it's that area in the middle that seems to be pretty lucrative. Kind of interesting to think about, right? Yeah, definitely. It's some kind of a gray area. That's with SEO. There is a gray cat also, but I didn't mention it. That's a combination of white cat and black cat techniques, but like that are less risky. Yeah, but interesting comparison, nevertheless. Yeah. I think it goes through life.

We all know people who just say this is right and this is wrong, but then there's people that operate in those margins and those people seem to be people that can navigate really good relationships and they can navigate solutions to problems that other people can't see. So I think it speaks volumes of your character when we begin talking about, the way in which we use strategies in life. And I'm stoked you shared that with me. It's a cool way to look at life, and I agree.

I was looking through some of your post, too, and I was, I liked the way, as I was just saying, I admire the strategy. And one of the things that I saw in one of your post was your ability to kind of pinpoint three different markets in the world of psychedelics and in theogens. And one is therapy and clinics, therapy clinics in retreats. Two is education and training. And three is product manufacturers. That's pretty astute breakdown right there, my friend.

Is that just something you saw or is that something you're working with? Or how are you aware to break down those three categories like that? Well, to be honest, there's a lot more of categories, at least in my opinion, but I couldn't place them all in that one infographic. So I did the three biggest ones. And they're basically, at least in my opinion, I mean, maybe somebody will disagree. I'm always up for debate. Constructively, of course.

So I'm thinking those are probably, do you think those three particular categories are the three with the most money behind them right now? Yeah, that's why I choose and they're literally the three main categories. And what would you say? So I've noticed a few specializations coming in. I'm beginning to see representatives of like,

there's obviously like the sisters in psychedelics, which is like seems to be, it encompasses all things. three of those, but specifically for women. I recently spoke with a guy who was focusing on men who were having a problem with like masculinity and are maybe having some, some big things happen in their life. But the way he talks, the way he uses psychedelics is specifically for men. Those are a couple different avenues I've been noticing that are kind of branching off. What are some new areas that you have noticed that are branching off? Yeah, I saw that similarly, um,

that they're psychedelics for women and psychedelics for men in some cases. And it was interesting because I think that psychedelics are for everyone. But maybe the integration process or something that the intention of using can be maybe divided to those two genders, so to speak. Yeah, it's interesting. In some ways, it seems to me to be like this archaic revival, you know, and I hope so on some level where, you know, maybe there can be. I'm up for all of it. Like I'm up for optimization. I'm up for group therapy.

I'm up for the individual. As long as it's constructive for the person and they're finding ways to conquer their problems, I'm all for it. You know, and I'm hopeful that we see some sort of return to ritual or some sort of return to, you know, the ritualistic view of it. What's it like for you? Are you in Serbia right now? Yeah, yeah, I'm currently in Serbia. Do you think that there's a difference between psychedelics in different countries? And if so, what do you think?

Definitely, definitely. I spoke with my friends in South America. It's much less stigmatized there. For example, in Serbia, when you talk about psychedelics, they will look at you like you're doing heroin or some or crack or something. they'll think you're nuts, but it's just the mentality of the people, you know. And when I see that a lot of countries are legalizing it, decriminalizing it, it just makes me wonder, is this the right place where I should be? There is a relatively low percentage of like-minded people in Serbia.

Maybe, I think, you know, being, sometimes being, I had a friend that said never be the first in line for anything, you know, but at the same time, I think that there's something to be said about people that lead or are thought leaders in the area. You know, maybe you and a handful of people where you're at are the seeds that are being planted for the next generation, you know, and if you've seen the positive change that it has on you, then clearly you understand the positive change you can have on your community. Yeah, definitely. I didn't see it only in myself. I saw it in other people as well.

And that's why I know for a fact that it works and it can help people. Yeah. It seems interesting over here. Sometimes I often think that different countries or different regions of the world have their own personality. And it seems to me that in the United States, we kind of have like this bipolar person. We're like one time worse we're a little bit like this and then we're way over here like this. You know, we have like this incredible divide sometimes like that. And I when I think about psychedelics, I see it healing that divide the same way it heals the individuals issues. I really see it beginning to bring together these two communities, these the sort of the divisive nature of the internal structure of the United States by and I'll give you an example. An example would be like the pharmaceutical. industry and and the holistic industry in the United States. They seem to be at odds about addiction.

And it seems to me that psychedelics are beginning to heal that divide in the community the same way it heals addiction. I was wondering if I could get your thoughts on that. And maybe you could add to that by saying, what do you think that psychedelics could heal in your part of the world? Yeah, I agree on you totally, especially on the pharmaceutical industry. I think that's the biggest issue in many countries because it's their kings of their business. They're involved in a lot of product manufacturers and the industry is just multi-billion industry. And to simply pick something up from the ground, it can heal you and can help you. It's just insane.

And I believe that that's the biggest beef in some countries why it's still criminalized. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's criminal to the pharmaceutical industry that you can pick up something off the ground and make money with it. Like that's criminal to them. They're like, wait a minute. And if they can push some medicine on you instead of you being able to heal yourself naturally, that's not in their interest. Yeah. Just realistically, they are looking how to make banks and not how you will get better.

Yeah. Yeah, there's a saying where I grew up with all the kids on the streets. They would be like, hey, the first one's free. You know, if you were going to slang something, the first one's always free, man. That's how good this is. Hey, take this for free. You'll be back. You know, and it seems that that sort of model is the same model that the pharmaceutical industry uses,

whether it's Suboxin or whether it's Prozac or whether it's Viagra. Whatever drugs those guys are slaying in, It's the same style. It's the same setup as, hey, the first one's free. Let me give you these first ones because I know you'll be back. And in this weird fantasy that I have, Nicola, it's like on some level, I wonder who's the biggest gangsters. Is it MS-13, which is like, you know, they run out of South America. They pretty much run.

In my opinion, I think that they have probably the best supply chain as far as narcotics from South America all the way up. I'll probably get heat for that. I'm sure there's someone going to blow me. I'm going to like, nah, MS-13 is lame. But MS-13 probably has the best setup. But are they bigger, badder, and stronger than Pfizer? And I think that they might be. What do you think about criminal versus the structured criminal?

Which gang do you think is better? I don't know. I think structured criminal is better because they're operating in illegal ways, you know. And they're not getting issues with government and FBI and everything. And I mean, the criminal organizations are just, you know, always keeping their eyes open and and seeing how they can do certain kind of things, which necessarily doesn't have to be good. And the main issue with criminal organization is lack of control.

For example, if you buy a product that's suicide from them, who can tell if that's laced or not or if it's legit. But when you buy it from company like Pfizer, for example, you know, with ransom tests, they ran some tests on it, you know, you will get your product. So in that extent, maybe I'm going with this legal criminal way. It's a crazy question, man. But I'm always, it's just stuff that goes on in my mind. I always want to ask people. So thanks for, thanks for indulging me in that one.

I think it's fascinating to think about the space that we're in. You know, when I think about the world of psychedelics moving forward, I'm fascinated to think about where we came from five years ago, where we are now, how early we still are. What do you see if you were to look into your crystal ball? And I know that no one can tell the future. But do you think that we continue to move at this pace of decriminalization and legalization? You continue to see it moving forward.

at this pace for the next five or ten years? Yeah, definitely. The industry is just growing bigger and bigger every year. And I mean, you can see the change now while it's legalized to some extent, for example, in Canada or California. You know, they're opening shops and legalizing clinics that they're using academy or psilocybin now because it's legal now, which is, in my opinion, and good, and I believe that when people get educated in the next couple of years, it will just boom. Right.

So you got some, yeah. Yeah. I, um, you know, you got some friends in, in South America. And when you look at the way in which they have, they have their clinics down there in a certain way, be it at a ceremonial setting, right? And then we have these clinics up here on the, in North America, on the, the, in North America, the other side of America. Do you think that there's a right way and a wrong way?

Is one better than the other? Are they just different dialects? I think they're different dialects. When I take a look at retreats in South America, they are more traditional. They are using techniques that are present for ages on that content. And then in North America, it's more, I don't know, It's more based on things that we already have, like cognitive behavior or teleotherapy

and just enhancing it with psychedelics. It, in my opinion, it doesn't have the traditional value as compared with retreats in South America. If we can say that the South America and North America have different dialects, What would a European dialect look like? I really can't tell. I'm not not. I work with some guys in Netherlands, and that's pretty much it for Europe.

Right. It's pretty much stigmatized in Europe still to this day. Some countries like Netherlands, for example, are having their products, but it's, I know for the fact that in Netherlands, they are selling, for example, truffles with psilocybin, which is a loophole because you can't have mushroom, but you can't have a truffle, you know. And it's just a loophole. I don't see it moving on progressively. In the last couple of years, it's been saying.

Yeah. At least from my point, view, maybe. somebody who is observing those things better can give a more competitive argument on this topic. It's interesting. I remember I had gone to Amsterdam. Man, this was a long dating myself, probably 20 plus years ago. And I remember going to the red light district and go to these coffee shops and stuff like that. And be like, I can't believe I can just go to this vending machine and get a joint out of here.

You know, it was so mesmerizing to me. But I never thought to think, does that even make sense? I never thought to think. I never thought about the idea of there being clinics at that time or being used for therapy. For me, it was just recreation to go there. It's interesting to see that I'm sure that there probably was on some level people using it in medicinal ways. It's, and sometimes I think, sometimes I think, like, it's really therapy and trauma based right now in the United. States. I've even heard terms like, like, like, traumatelics. Like, do you think that that is something that is going to blossom out of the idea of therapy or is it going to stay, is this always going to be a part of it or is it too much on therapy? What's your thoughts on that?

I don't think it's too much in therapy. I think it's a great way to integrate the benefits of psychedelics and the correct way because, I don't know. I mean, I'm not advocating recreational use, definitely. But. in clinics and people in therapies like that, it's more, I don't know, more controlled. If the clinician is trained and he knows what, or they know what they're doing, they will probably deliver better results than you, taking psychedelics in your home and hoping for the best. So this brings up a really good point that I think you can speak to. When we talk about someone there to help you, You know, they can help you figure things out.

And much like you can help out a website by using some keywords, it's almost like your programming behavior into that website. And as someone as an SEO expert like you, you know the right words to use to get things noticed. It's the same way a therapist would point out keywords to someone going through this integration process, right? It's pretty similar right there. Really good comparison.

And it's, I never thought about it in that manner. It should be told, but it's, it makes sense perfectly. Yeah. Like you, okay, you're in this, if you're going to do some SEO optimization for psychedelics, not only are you looking to put keywords into that site, but you're thinking like three steps ahead. I'm going to put this word in this site. So the person that reads this will think about this other article.

And then I wanted to link back to that. It's the same way you rope, you reprogram someone's mind. hey, this person has a negative thought loop, so I'm going to give them this particular key word that will unlock that door so that they can walk through it like that. It may be, I bet if we did a study, people that understand SEO and website programming would be great facilitator. Maybe you could speak to that a little bit. What are some other similarities in that avenue?

Yeah. I never thought in that direction, to be honest. honest to issue and I will have to think that truly but it makes sense to some extent but I would leave I would leave that to train clinicians and medical professionals instead of searching for hope in web developers or SEO experts I don't know man I think that I'm to have to hook you up with some people that are that have been in that industry because I think you may not be a professional facilitator, but I think a long conversation about what you do would be helpful to people who are going to become integration specialists.

In fact, you know, if you look at some of these schools like CIIIS, I think that you would be, you know, you could be an integral part of a new sort of therapy. And that's another thing that I think about. When I start looking at the different retreats and God bless them all, I'm super stoked that people are doing it. I think that it is kind of becoming, there's an industry standard that's beginning to happen. And it's like you go down for a retreat. You can sign up for a three day or a five day.

The first day you do a light dose. The second day you do a big dose. Then we offer you an integration. And on the way out, we give you a large Diet Coke. You know what I mean? So it's like you have this system set up. And so what I would like people to begin doing is collaborating with people that may not have the background. because I think someone who understands keywords.

I think people that are in the world of applied linguistics, but I think all of this language, whether it's digital language or programming, I think that these play a key part in beginning to understand behavior, which brings me to my next question for you. What are your thoughts on behavior in your life and behavior, like before psychedelics and behavior after psychics? It was kind of a big question, but I'll just throw it out and you can respond any way you want. Hmm.

Good question. Well, I personally saw a great increase in motivation, at least for me, to finish some great aspects of my life, for example, college or, I don't know, starting to work on SEO and psychedelics for other people helping them. That's also what I discovered after one of my experiences that I don't want to keep this knowledge to myself. I want to help people and especially in this industry, which I think it's a good industry because it's relatively new. And I really believe that it has great potential to grow in the future. And because of my love for the psychedelics, that's the main reason why I want to help people who are doing. their work with psychedelics or around them. I love the idea of becoming motivated by seeing it.

Like, what was it, though? Like, what was it that made you motivated? Was it like a, were you looking at your life? Was it like searching for something? And then, you know what? I should do this because it will help me. Or maybe you can unpack what it was that motivated you. to do psychedelics or what?

So after the after having the psychedelic experience, like what, how do you unpack that motivation? Was it that you saw yourself in like a third person point of view? Was it that you had this weird time dilation? And you're like, man, if I just stay down this path, I'm going to be this guy. If I take this path, I'll be this guy. Or maybe it wasn't anything like that. That was exactly exactly like that.

If I stay on my path, I will, I just saw. where it would lead and I knew that they need to change that. I didn't figure out at that very moment where in which aspects of my life the change should be made but after some time I don't know I'll give a rough estimate 15 30 days I don't know I just figure out this might seem like a good idea and I tried it I went down this road and here I am now. see that I wanted you to get that out on the podcast and I wanted to hear your exact description of because I think that that motivation and the way you described it, I think that there's a young George or a young nickel out there that hears that boom right there. Hey, I saw myself on that path.

And when it comes from when the sound comes from your lips and it goes to the ears of a younger version of us, now they have something to grab on to. Now if they have a psychedelic experience, now they have something to see. They have a key word. key person and they can identify you, they can identify me. And now that experience to them, you know what I mean? It's almost contagious in a way when we begin to share experiences like that. And it's true. I've spoken to lots of people who saw themselves. And just think about the, think about that language. Like, I saw myself on this path. When you say something like that, you're referring to yourself in the third person. And like, that's what psychedelics do in a lot of

ways. They allow you to see yourself in a way that you never have before. And that's good and it's bad because you can see, oh, look at all these things I can be. But you can also be like, holy crowd, I was a total dirt bag over here, George. You know, there's been plenty of times where I've seen that. It's just a real authentic, down and dirty power of psychedelics is that you can really see that. And it's, I think it's available to everybody, right? Yeah. I think that, you know, The main benefit of taking psychedelics is that ego is something that blocks us in a certain way. And their ability to dissolution that ego and to give you a wider picture is really important in terms of not only changing your future, but it can also affect mental health and everything else. you know just that very moment where you are not blocked by your ego is really something new

and something that can i won't say put a lot of pressure but put some kind of directions towards your future itself yeah yeah it's well said it's like it's like uh ego no ego Ego? No ego. You see totally different picture with and without ego. Yeah. I was talking to, there's a great book. This is a two-volume set. For anybody watching, it's called Ayahuasca Awakening's by Dr. Jessica Rochester. And I had this long, I've been doing this series of work with her where she comes on the podcast. And I honestly feel like I'm just talking to a master of behavior and a master of spirituality. It's mind-blowing. And one of the things she had told me during our last conversation was that George, she goes, George, I want you to think about your instincts. And I'm like, okay. And we're having this conversation about instincts and how, you know, your instincts are something you're aware of. Like sometimes you'll be having a conversation and you just have this awareness about somebody. She's explaining that to me. I'm like, oh, yeah. You know, I've gotten that before. Like, oh, I think that this, I think this girl may have a crush on me or I think I may have a crush on this girl, you know, but there's these, these feelings, these instincts that you get to. You know, I think that this girl. I think that you get to. You know, you know, I think that this girl. You know, these feelings, these instincts that you get to. you can act on. And so she goes, now I want you to think about how those instincts are.

You don't think about them all the time. They just feel them. You intuit, they're intuitive. She goes, some people say that we are on a path where our mind and our ego will soon become like our instincts. It won't be at the top of your mind. Like you won't be constantly thinking about things all day, but your mind will be like your instincts.

And the next layer is this non-ego layer or, you know, you know, maybe a better way to say it is your ego integration. And when people talk about this ego death, when they talk about the dissolution of the ego, what they're really seeing is glimpses of the future of how we're going to be. And maybe that this is this awakening where we're getting to a point where we've integrated our ego.

We no longer need it to be like this incredible, you know, protective troubleshooter that's constantly looking for problems. Like now we're moving it down to the level of the instinct. And now we're becoming available to act, and be in the now where we just live in this time where we're like it's much more aware of what's going on instead of worrying about awareness.

But that's a pretty amazing concept to think about, right? Yeah, definitely. I really appreciate things you're saying. They're really unique and I never thought about some stuff that way. That's why I love meeting new people and talking to them. You can learn a lot. Yeah. And right back at you because I wouldn't even have these thoughts unless I was sitting here talking to you.

So it's this it's this interconnection that you, me and people have. Like, we're just bouncing ideas off each other and learning in the midst of it. And what a classroom this can be. What an opportunity it is. If you're willing, if you're willing to have the courage to face the fear to do new things, to speak to new people in new countries and maybe try psychedelics a little bit, if it's right for you, you know, if it's your time, it's fascinating. It's fascinating. Definitely.

I agree 100% with you. And it's, I mean, these interconnections you make with people and new stuff you can hear, especially in, I will say now generalize it with psychedelics, but if you talk with some people who are, for example, in South America in retreats and they give you some guys, and how are they doing stuff, are they preparing, you may want to consider trying something like that? before your journey and the journey may be different and in a way when compared to your traditional settings, how you are used to consume psychedelics. Yeah, that's really well said. I couldn't agree more. It's a great way to begin to understand who we are in this world. And it's exciting.

You know, I'm really excited for the future of human connection, for the future of human awareness and for the future of human understanding. It's fascinating to think about the way we move together, the same way like mycelium grows together, right? Like all of a sudden, you're making these same connections. And, man, it's so damn mind-blowing me to think. You know what? Let me ask you this.

So you're also familiar with cannabis and PEDs are like performance-enhancing drugs, right? Yeah, yeah. What kind of those are you familiar with? Well, I finished college for personal training. And I've been working in that field for nine years, less seven years, I think. I started when I was 19, finished the course. And then after course, I decided to go to college after my experience, obviously. And from that standpoint, when you're always in the gym and always hearing stuff about BEDs and that.

and that niche, so to say, you know, you learn a lot. I mean, I never used steroids or anything like that. It's just not me, but I know a lot about it, and I know a lot of people who do use. And I really like learning new things and how they affect our bodies. You know, for example, psychedelics affect our brain, but BDs affect your body in a way by stimulating your hormones and, you know, and that's just, it's like a physical world of, world of psychedelics, you know, psychedelics are for mind, PDs are poor body. And I don't necessarily enjoy working with PDs, to be honest with you, but I have a couple

of clients who are, I mean, selling steroids and having websites about, bodybuilding and stuff like that since I was really stoked on bodybuilding for a while. Yeah. Yeah, but for for cannabis industry, I see I can say on a similar level as with psychedelics, since there are there are also therapeutic benefits of cannabis, especially at higher doses, which people don't necessarily know, but I don't know. I think it's a good start because in most countries, when you take a look at the global scale, cannabis will be legalized first, then the next step is obviously psychedelics.

So I think they're a precursor to psychedelics, in a way, in a way, if we look at businesses and industries. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And I'm a big fan of, you know, they call it like layering. And I'm starting to see this more and more in the retreats. They're like they use, they call it layering. So maybe one day you do mushrooms. The next day you do ayahuasca. Or some people do MDMA and mushrooms at the same time.

But I am trying to push this thing that here's what I've taken for me. And now obviously I'm not a doctor. This is not medical advice. But what regimen I have been using is like a big fan of growth hormone with mushrooms. You know, and I think if you take growth hormone, maybe like two hours before you you take a dose of mushrooms, I think it synergizes there because it takes a little while for the, for the, and I don't take, when I talk about growth hormone, I'm not injecting it. I'm taking like a sacralog, like MK675 or something like that, I think is what it is.

But it is available as like peptides now or, you know, boom, thank you. Yes. Swarm on it right now. Yes. Yeah. And I think that that is going to be, I don't know who's doing it yet. I know Nick Murray out of Jamaica is he's got a lot of biofeedback and he's big into optimization and he's working with athletes. I don't, I'm not going to say he's using anything like that.

But I think that that is something people should be looking at is the combination of SARMs with psycheducts. And I don't know anybody who's doing it right now, but you know as well as I do, Nicola, the people in the bodybuilding community, those people have zero fear of trying to do. things, man. Those guys are just, dude, they're jacked up. They're using the SARMs. They're taking down copious notes. I'm eating a thousand grams of chicken. I'm taking these seven SARMs. I'm stacking these things. Like, those guys are amazing, man. What do you think about using SARMs with psychedelics? I never heard that anyone uses it in that way, but until this moment. So this is a mind-blowing information for me. And I will definitely have to explore it a little bit to see this. somebody actually doing it regularly. Yeah, obviously you, but your first person that told me this. I'm really amazed. Yeah.

How did it affect you? What changes do you see compared to traditional psychedelic experiences if you take Sard before your journey with mushrooms or whatever psychedelics you're using? Okay, so there's two that I've really been using, and one is RAD 140, or it's like, it's called testosterone or something like that. And it's basically a synthetic testosterone. So sometimes I'll take that, and I'll go, first off, 20 milligrams is too much. Nobody should do 20 milligrams and then that because it makes you retain water and you definitely feel the testosterone in your body. And it's good and it's bad because it has similar side effects where you can be agitated. So if anyone's going to try the Rad 140, I was going with a regimen of like somewhere between 10 milligrams and 15 milligrams.

And what I found that it did in combination with mushrooms or psilocybin, and the psilocybin dose that I was taking was like a light seven, like a light seven, like seven point one grams or something like that. So I do 7.1, 7.1, 7.2. And I take maybe 10, 15 milligrams of the rad 140. And it really built like a, a short. strong foundational almost amphetamine base and i don't mean emphetamine in that you know it made me like grind my teeth or chew the inside of my mouth but it gave me a much more integrated sort of focused energy on top of the on top of the um psychedelic high and i think that made for better visuals i think it made for a stronger longer trip all the way through i think it may be prolonging the trip, I'd say maybe two hours. And I don't mean you're going to be peaking for two hours, but I would say it intensified the peak, maybe an extra 40 minutes. And then you wrote it out

for another hour and 20 minutes, you know, so it stayed longer. As far as the growth hormone, I would take that. I think it's, I think it's in K670. I'll put it in the show notes. I don't think 670 is right. And there's another name for it. I'll put it in there. But it is a sarm. And I really like that one. I think that what that combination does, I take it two hours before. And I know it's hitting me because I get super hungry, like two hours in. So about four hours in, I can just feel like, oh, my God, I'm super hungry.

That's clearly the growth hormone kicking in. But I feel like with the growth hormone, it helps facilitate even stronger neuroplasticity. And what I mean by that is people who have. have been around the psychedelic world long enough who understand the environment of what's happening in the mind while you're taking mushrooms specifically. You know, you have the decrease in the default mode network. You have a sort of synesthesia where you're processing sound in the visual cortex and you're probably, you know, you're probably, you know, comprehending visions in like Broca's area. So you're using the different parts of the brain in order to change. And that's

you're getting the synesthesia. But I think it helps the blood flow in there. I think it helps, you know, I think it helps all like the dendritic spine, you know, formation. I think it helps all of it because if you look at the research what growth hormone does in the brain, it does similar stuff. So if you're stacking that on top of the psychedelic experience, I think you're seeing it twofold. I think it would be beautiful for people with a learning disability. I think it would be beautiful for people who are trying to optimize in sports, I think it would be optimal for anybody who finds themselves in visual practice of something before they do it, whether you're a wrestler, a boxer, a biker, you know, an artist. But I really like that combination. And I would,

I would hope that there's more people that hear this and get excited about it and wanted to try it. I think something that, like if you have friends right now, Nicol that are in that world of bodybuilding, that are in that world of psalms, that have those websites, I bet you you would clean house with a product that had both of those things in there. You know what I mean? I'm not saying you should do that if it's illegal, but I am saying that if there's an avenue for that, I think that that could be a first on market that would absolutely destroy it.

That's really good point. I'm still amazed by this fact. I never heard about stacking science with psychedelics, but now after things you said, it makes perfect sense, actually. Yeah. I mean, just look at the Sarms market. Like, you know, I'm a big fan of reading, like, the bodybuilding communities because they're so detailed in the notes that they write. They're so detailed in their practice of like, here's my diet. Here's what I'm weighing out the chicken so you can know I'm eating exactly this much.

Like, they're so detailed. And a lot of those bodybuilding people, you know, people think about bodybuilders as meatheads. but there's some of the smartest people out there. And I think that has to do with the supplements they're taking. They're training their body and their mind at the same time. The level of discipline it takes to be a bodybuilder is incredible. It's incredible. Definitely.

That's just out of this world. You need to be focused all the time and just, I don't know, you should be like this watching just the things you need to do to achieve your goals. that can reflect on other aspects of your life. You know, if you're starting a business or something like that, then you need to get focused. If you're disciplined in such manner, it would be much easier for you to go that bad.

Yeah. Look at Arnold Schwarzenegger. Like, that guy took medical, you know, that guy had a medical regiment of certain types of steroids. That guy's one of the smartest people out there. People make fun of that guy. That guy's on point, man. And that guy is one of the most smartest, charismatic, beautiful people out there that was really focused.

That, you know, the guy traveled the world and became leaders around the world. And still to this day, that guy's fun to listen to and interesting. And he started by training his body and training his mind, man. Like, that guy's a hero to me. I think he's awesome. Yeah, definitely. But yeah, I think that there's something there. It's similar to psychedelics.

There's stigma about psychedelics and there's stigma about body. builders and people who are working out. People think exactly what you said, that they're meatheads, but not necessarily. I mean, I know, I know personally a lot of meatheads in the gym, but not, it's not, like, it just starts working out and start taking steroids or sarums or whatever peptides, you will become a meathead. It's just not that way. Just you need to, to distinguish your learning abilities with your workouts and

things like that. Just, you know, people work out, focus on nutrition and everything and still read books, educate themselves. It's not like they are just focused on only bodybuilding and only eating chicken for 24 hours a day. Yeah, it's like calling someone who smokes cannabis a stoner. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's just the same stigma

like right there. It's so, now that I think about it, like it's eerily similar, maybe that's just human behavior. Maybe we just use these weird labels to put on people because we don't understand what they're doing. Yeah, definitely. I agree with you. And I think there's the same, exact same, with psychedelics, why it's stigmatized. People, people are, for example, I'll give you a basic example of US when war on drugs happened and when Nixon was ruling or being president, whatever they had that they had those anti-drug campaigns that, you know, weed and mushrooms and LSD will make you jump out the buildings and I don't know, do horrible things. And I think that that that stick with people to this day, especially for people who grew up in that period of time. When you're a

child and you're listening to those kind of stuff on TV or in news, you know, it will stick. And when you grow up, you will have prejudice about, about psychedelics, obviously, because you were taught from young age that it's something bad. It will make you do horrible things, jump out of the buildings. I don't know. And that's, I think when that clears off a little bit in the future, in the next maybe 30, 40 years, years, it will be much less stigma revolving psychedelics. Yeah, that's really well said.

It's amazing how much of our life is programmed in us before the age of seven. You know, we're given all these cookie cutter ideas. Okay, you can be this. You can be that. You can have this. And on some levels, I think that, you know, I've heard some interesting articles that talk about psychedelics, but be in, Theogens. I think the article I read, and I apologize, I can't cite the author, but it's, it's something along the lines of.

Mushrooms, Iboga, you know, a lot of these entheogens that are indigenous, that have been used in indigenous practice, they put people's mind frame back into a state of neuroplasticity that it was when they were a child. And that's why they're able to reprogram their mind. It's pretty fascinating, right? Yeah, yeah, definitely. I saw a lot of articles about that kind of stuff that they are bringing back your childhood trauma. And by being more suggestive in that state of mind when you're under the influence, it's much more likely that you will overcome those fears and traumas that you experience. This is from a medical point of view. Yeah, it's interesting to think about the way in which mass education can happen.

In some ways, it makes me hopeful, but a little nervous about the future of psychedelics and education. Because on some level, I could see how psychedelics could be an incredible tool for, dare I say, children coming of age. You know, I think it could be something. It could be a rite of passage. Like, there's a really great book. I quoted all the time by all this hugs they call the island. And in that book, these kids that are like 12, they climb this mountain and sit in a church with their mentor or one of the elders who's like 14 or 16.

And they have this realization where they're looking out over this beautiful canyon about what life is. It's sort of like this write of passage. And a lot of things can be taught to somebody. And one of those things is how to use your mind in a different way. And it seems that education today, doesn't teach that. What education teaches today is that we're like Pavlovian dogs where you go to a room and a whistle blows and you salivate and you stand in front of an authority figure. And, you know, I'm hopeful that, well, that's what makes me anticipate the beauty of psychedelics and education. It doesn't take a whole lot of imagination to look back at the past and see something like Jim Jones or potentially Charles Manson that found a group of people and brought him to South America and made them drink all this crazy coolly. Like that's out there too. But, you know, it's, you can't separate the good from the bad.

It's just part of the whole. It's interesting. Both those things could happen, right? Probably with equal potential. Well, it could be. It could be. But I don't know. I think that education plays a crucial role in this.

I'm not necessarily advocating that kids should be taught that psychedelics are good. And I don't know, it's not for everybody. That's just how it is. but in some point later on when you grow up a little bit maybe in early 20s or something like that that's maybe the point where you should get educated about psychedelics and general and in drugs generally just to see what's good what's bad and you can distinguish good from that yeah it's fascinating to think about what are i know that you've been writing some articles and stuff for people maybe you can talk about what's one of the latest articles that you've written

Our latest article I did for my friends in Costa Rica, they're having a retreat. We did an article about intention setting before taking psychedelics and how that can affect your journey and how that can affect your integration process and everything afterwards. I did also article about I think it was about Campbell it's a psychedelic frog it's five MEO DMT I believe and people are using in indigenous cultures and they're also I saw that it's still used to this day some retreats all for combo experiences and buffalo as well. I'm sorry, I mixed them up.

Right, those are two different. Yeah, combo is some poison that is placed under your, on your burnt skin. But it is also producing life-changing effects. So whatever the case, I mean, there is a lot of diversity in psychedelic world, not, you don't have to stick only to mushrooms or ayahuasca. or anything, you know, you should check out what works for you best. Determine your settings, determine your intentions, determine your needs. And from that point, you can see if it's Iboga that you want, if it's Ayahuasca,

if it's psilocybin, you know, it's, there is a broad spectrum of psychedelics. Some people may turn to MDMA or ketamine, but I'm personally not. not in the best mindset about chemical compounds. So that's what I'm avoiding. I mean, I know a lot about it as well, but I'm sticking to nature. That's something I really enjoy and love. Yeah, I love it too.

And I'm excited. It seems that it seems to me we've probably only know a small fraction of the natural psychedelics that are out there. I've only recently heard a combo, but I'm sure it's been around in South America forever. For ever, for quite some time. It just seems like, yeah, it's interesting to think about all the medicines that might be out there that we don't even know about yet.

Yeah, definitely. Especially with exploration of this indigenous tribes and people and how they are living, what they are using, you know, in order to heal. It doesn't necessarily have to be a psychedelic plant. You know, it can be some basic plant that will heal your wounds, I don't know, burns and something like that. It's just fascinating. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's equally fascinating to think about how far we've gotten from that, you know. And as the further and further we have gotten away from natural medicine, it seems the further and further away we've gotten from being who we are.

Like just like if you, if you look at the, the way we've gotten away from nature. and how we treat each other. Like it seems like those two things are moving away at the same pace. And when you get back to nature, you start finding your relationship with nature and you start finding your relationship with other people. It's interesting to think about, man. It blows my mind. Definitely.

When you come to nature and see those kind of things that you don't necessarily see in your city, you know, we all basically live in urban areas. There is concrete everywhere. And when you go there in the jungle in the retreat, it's just a different experience. Have you been lucky enough to go down to Costa Rica or check out South America down there? No, no, but I hope I will soon. Yeah, me too.

I've spent some time in Mexico, but I've never made it down to Central or South America. And if I close my eyes and listen closely, I'm pretty sure I can hear it calling me. It's definitely calling you. If you have the opportunity, you should definitely do it. Yeah. There is a lot of people here in Serbia who are going to South America in retreats, doing the ceremonies with the medicine and coming back. I mean, I don't necessarily think there is a lot of them, but I have checked out five to ten stories of different people for sure.

We have one person, I don't remember his name, but he's like an advocate from South America. He got trained there. He's doing something similar here, although it's highly illegal and it's in the shadows, you know, but it's still good to know. He was featured on Vice, I believe, in some episodes. And that's really fun to watch. But I can't remember his name. I'm so bad with names and dates and numbers that's just insane. Yeah, maybe after your new article comes out about SARMs and psychedelics, maybe the people will invite you down to Costa Rica because you're going to be working with your friends in the bodybuilding community.

You write this new article, and then they'll probably want to put your, maybe you could call it the Nicola Straca protocol, and then they can use that protocol in South America. You know what I mean? They're going to be moving around. I will definitely do an article about SARMS and psychedelics. this is just, this is just mind-blowing. I never thought about it and this is just something I want to research now.

As soon as we end the podcast, I will just start research. Yeah. Well, look, I mean, you have lived experience in the bodybuilding world. You have lived experience with people that you could probably call on the phone on speed dial that know tons about bodybuilding and sarums. and supplements. And I think with what you know about psychedelics and what you know about PEDs and what your friends know who are probably experts in that field, you could probably cross-pollinate and

begin to understand, okay, this is what's happening in the body with PEDs. This is what the literature about psychedelics is. It's, you know, and if we use these two substances and we compare them to a study done in Bodybuilding Magazine in 1987, we can see that what's going, what could happen, but you could probably write a, you could probably publish a paper on it, Nicola, to be honest with you. I mean, if, you know, you have a background, you have an academic background, you are an expert in SEO. You could probably get a published on your site with your ability. You just merge all those things together, man. I can't wait to read it, man. I'm excited for you. Yeah, I will definitely

do it. This just motivates me even further. Yeah. I need to see if there is, there, if there have been done some experience and clinics, clinical trials or research about combining these substances together. That's my first go-to. When I start researching, I go to Google Academic and start seeing just papers and quality work that is facts, you know? Yeah. Yeah, I reach out to a few of those doctors that you find one of those reports.

reach out to them and then you're off to the races man definitely definitely that's how it must be done if it should be properly especially for this model things like combining sarms with with psychedelics yeah there's there's some interesting um farm ds out there some some people that went to farm uh pharmacy school and um uh god god uh dr ben I can't think of his name, but I bet you he, dang it. I'm a bad with names too. Dr. Ben, if you're out there, I love you, man. Shout out to him.

He's a Farm D guy, but he does study the ideas of, you know, using entheogens and psychedelics with different types or at least investigates what may happen when we start introducing different hormones, different SARMs and stuff like that too. But it's cutting edge. You'd be the first person to do it. And I think you'd publish it in. So, you know what? I'm coming up on our hour here, Nicola,

and I know you probably have some things to do, but I got to tell you, this conversation is beautiful. I really enjoyed talking to you. I love getting to see people, not only from different parts of the world, but what I really admire and what really drew me to want to talk to you

is this ability that you decided to strike out on your own and you're creating your own new brand. I think in doing that, you're inspiring younger versions of us. Like, you're helping build the next version of people, be better by becoming the best version of yourself. And I want to highlight that, man. I'm so thankful that you did it.

And you found the courage to do it. And it's contagious, man. And I can't wait to see what you come up with next. You have tons of great stuff out there. Everybody should be checking you out. They should be reaching out to you. If you're in the psychedelic community, you need a writer, you need some SEO. You need something done for your blog, something website related.

This is the guy you should be talking to. He knows this stuff. He's passionate about it. And he will work with you to create the best possible. solutions for whatever you're looking for. So, Nicola, before I let you go, man, what do you have coming up and where can people find you? You can find in LinkedIn or on my website, mushroomwriting.com. For my future projects, combining sarums with psychedelics is definitely what I'm going to do.

So this is the next big project I'm doing. Definitely, I'm going to stop the things I'm doing right now. You're so inspiring. You're so inspiring. I love talking to you. This was really, really profound and awesome conversation we had. Like I said,

man, it's the same for me. I wouldn't, I wouldn't have never, I wouldn't have had this conversation. I would have had any thoughts unless you and I were sitting down unless I had read your story

and unless we had the exact conversation we did. So it's our conversation, man. The inspiration comes from both of us working together. You know what I mean? And look, who knows what it'll Foster, you know, who knows what our words today may reach a kid 15 years from now.

Like, if it reaches one person, man, that's a home run for us. It's a home run, man. So shout out to the power of psychedelics. Well, hang on for one second, Nicola, I want to talk to you, but I'm going to shut it down with the audience. So ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for hanging out with us today. I had a great time. I hope that you all got to enjoy as much as we did. Reach out to me, reach out to Nicola, and we'll talk to you guys again tomorrow.

Aloha. Bye, bye.