i'm fascinated by american cops right yes it's a tough job tell us about a really interesting case
you see so many things i mean i've unfortunately shown up on scene when somebody had just committed
suicide minutes earlier and you know the person was still moving for myself with
the gun gunshot wound because the mentality is like oh you're a tough guy you're a cop you know
you can just suck it up and go home no if you just saw somebody die that's really not normal
hey there folks pete here from thairish times how's he on how you doing and what's the
story we have an interview today with search from america an ex-cop that's now a youtuber
over here in thailand it's all you bad boys what you gonna do when surge comes for you
just had a massive shower i just finished about 10 minutes ago been waiting for it to stop
check out the big rain clouds here and i'm not sure if you can see you probably can't
see but that's rain right there that's not rain and we got rain over there as well so we're
getting hit from every angle now it's probably going to blow over here in the next 10 minutes
so i'll have to make this intro fairly sharpish anyway we're going to meet serge and ex-cop
from america that's now a new youtuber over here in thailand so let's have a chat with them see
what their story is with them and if you like this content hit that like button leave me a comment
and uh enjoy and i'm going to be uploading a couple more videos this week for you i've got a
couple of big ones coming so things are looking good here at irish times let's go meet serge
serge how you doing good pete how are you good thanks for doing this hey absolutely man good to
be here it's nice to meet you finally it's a pleasure your channel is doing very well
thank you sir and uh you've got a nice uh presentation about your good great talker
i appreciate that i've it's been an interesting journey and i'm just trying to do my best
okay well you're the you're the up-and-comer you're you're going to do well i think in the
youtube scene anyway we're going to have a chat to you about your life today so tell us where
you're from uh originally i was born in russia in st petersburg i lived until i was nine years
old and then my parents with myself and my brother moved to the u.s to escape persecution there was a
lot of problems obviously communism also religious persecution being a russian jew so we moved to the
u.s to the san francisco bay area in california and i spent 40 years living there then moved to
texas for 11 months and now i'm here in bangkok so what was it like moving from russia to america
you know as a nine-year-old child i don't think it was that complicated i don't remember too much
of it i just remember being in a different area meeting different people having to learn a new
language obviously but it was it was pretty simple so do you consider yourself to be american or
russian i'm american i mean i guess i cause of a russian american but i'm an american i've lived in
america 40 years i'm american citizen i consider myself to be an american so before we get into
your why you're in thailand let's talk about your background because you have a really interesting
story you've had a lot of careers can you tell us what you've done i have i've had a variety
of different careers um most of my background was in sales and marketing uh early on back in the uh
i lived in silicon valley which was san francisco bay area and probably in the early mid 90s during
the internet boom ipo all the companies were going public i was working as a recruiter so i hired
software hardware engineers i worked for a lot of internet startups many of which are not around
anymore and i did that for a number of years and that was really exciting to be in that in that
environment after that i traded stocks for myself on a professional level did that for a little bit
and that was really exciting took a little bit of a retirement for six months and then i'd always
had this dream of being in law enforcement so when i was 32 years old i applied and i thought
they'd never hire me and they called my bluff and i got into law enforcement i spent 12 years
working for a local sheriff's agency and i was a public information officer there i worked special
operations ended up being promoted to a sergeant where i managed deputies on patrol also in court
environment and so tell us tell us i'm fascinated by american cops right yes so it's a it's a tough
job tell us about like a really interesting case that you did as a cop there's cases of
elder abuse child abuse things that nobody should ever see and it really got to you and sometimes
the problem that a lot of people law enforcement have is they have a hard time going home
because they take those things with them and i was fortunate enough where i was able to kind of turn
it off when i got home and not bring bring some of that anguish it's not that i didn't care but
you have to to a certain degree be able to leave that because otherwise it will affect
you you won't be able to do your job uh it's just like people work in medical environments
where people die and things like that you have to get over that so a lot of times people see
you know cops or whatever maybe making jokes or talking about something it's taken out of context
because it's a defense mechanism that you might have to use because you see so many things i mean
i've unfortunately shown up on scene when somebody had just committed suicide minutes earlier and
you know the person was still moving from a cell phone with the gun gunshot wound
you know things like that that uh nobody what does that do to your mental health
because i don't know how i'd be if i saw something like that you know it's
i think what makes it a little bit easier not to sound cold is that you're somewhat removed
because you don't know the person on a personal level but it's very difficult uh especially if
you have to deal with now a parent or a loved one who comes out and sees this and one of the
things that our department wasn't great at and i think a lot of law enforcement departments aren't
great at is giving mental health support to their law enforcement officers because the mentality is
like oh you're a tough guy you're a cop you know you can just suck it up and go home and it's like
no if you just saw somebody die that's really not normal so that's why i eventually got involved in
our peer support unit where we basically helped other guys in the department if they had any kind
of trauma situation happen they needed somebody to go talk to because the standard was just kind of
hey go take a week off you know and you'll be fine you'll come back and we're talking this this is
only eight ten years ago we're not talking 70s and 80s when they just didn't care so mental health
is still something that's severely overlooked in a lot of cases unfortunately a lot of areas
it can weigh on you so why did you quit the cops well one of the reasons i left was i developed a
gluten allergy i couldn't eat donuts anymore so they fired me
yeah you can't eat donuts as a cop you're useless get the hell out
no i had i had a cumulative back injury and that happens unfortunately a lot of law enforcement
the duty belts that we wear they're about 25 pounds and you want it on obviously tight
it's secured because you don't want somebody grabbing your weapons and everything off of you
and what happens a lot of times is it just compresses your spine people end up with
back injuries and eventually that's kind of what happened also getting in and out of the patrol car
with all that gear bending up and down uh and going from what i call you know zero to sixty
because one minute you're just sitting resting next you know you've got a foot bale and you
gotta run after somebody and chase them so it was back injuries in my end and i decided that
it was time to leave because i didn't want to injure myself more and what did you do then so
after that what i did is i've always uh well not always i started a vintage toy business probably
sometime in the early 90s i've always kind of been a big kid at heart i've loved vintage toys
and i had this business while selling vintage toys online part time and when i retired our
law enforcement i just did it full time so for the next eight years i continued my vintage toy
business and that went really well so i just continued selling online and some local events
i also started a couple of different online forums uh one of the things i've had a habit in my life
and when i don't know something i tried to bring the information to me instead of going to them and
i had bought a uh a range rover one of the classic range rovers uh that land rover made and i wanted
to learn more about it so i started reading all these land rover forums and i really couldn't
find a lot of the info that i wanted so i thought i'll start one so i decided to start a land rover
for him and of course you know the armchair warriors all said hey there's already several
forums you know where are you going to get with that and you know being a stubborn russian
you know american but i mean my roots are russian i said oh i can't do this okay so that kind of
pushed me forward in life so i started this forum and i built into the largest land rover community
in the world um relatively quickly and that went really well and i just kind of i kind of got
bored with it and it was a perfect timing there was a canadian company that was interested and
you know i ended up transferring to them i sold it to them it wasn't a large amount of money but it
was just perfect timing so they bought that and i kind of uh i did some articles and some land
rover magazines i had uh published some articles in some toy magazines there was quite a bit that
i had done i had already experience with doing media from my law enforcement days because as the
public information officer i did all the on camera all the radio appearances the newspaper articles
so i'll never forget my first live interview which i had no idea was going to be live it was pretty
uh pretty unbearable to watch when i go back and watch that but i had quite a bit of experience
with that early on in my career so it made it kind of simpler dealing with social media in general
so let's get into the thailand questions because we all love thailand we all want to know
absolutely what you doing here well i first came to thailand in 2012 it was november and i
came here with a girlfriend of mine at the time on vacation we came here and i just instantly
fell in love with it pete i fell in love with the culture the people the food it was just
so warm and inviting a little bit warmer than i was used to and that was definitely interesting
but i really fell in love with it and then fast forward almost uh nine years we're
2020 probably around september i have the date written down somewhere it's the middle of pandemic
i'm in california silicon valley i'm sitting at my house i'm watching youtube and i started watching
uh cb media and i'm watching chad's videos about all the automotive events here and i've been a
car nut my whole love i love cars motorcycles anything with the machine machines engines
and i watched that and honestly that night i decided i think i'm done i had also just turned
50 and i thought okay let's sell the house let's sell everything i own and let's go to thailand and
let's make content and and start fresh it was just a complete change of pace
are you like on this journey that you're trying to figure something out or because i meet a lot
of people and there's a lot of people actually sat right here in this position and they've
quit their jobs one guy alex you might be watching now he quit he worked on netflix and he quit his
jobs he's traveling the world so um it seems to be a reoccurring theme on the channel that we
meet people that are like i've given it all up i'm going all in over here why is that or am i just
maybe the universe is just showing me these type of people i don't know what it is maybe it's a
reflection of me no i think everybody does it for different reasons you know for me it was twofold
the pandemic for me like a lot of other people maybe think about what's really important in life
and it wasn't you know the the cars or the house or the material possessions
i realized that i needed to get on my shelf i was always a very structured person i said okay let me
go do something that's completely out of the norm for me to move to a different country and travel
and also i don't know i turned 50 and i thought okay what am i going to do now every decade i kind
of did something different and i had decided that the time was just right and i followed my gut and
a lot of decisions in my life i really trust my gut because i think it's based on your experience
and your knowledge it's not just some weird weird thing it's really your body and your mind
telling you something that you already know and i trust myself so i decided to follow this journey
and come here and i really wanted to create content which was something really new for me
and i've i've have a blast with it so far what's the plan for the channel so the plan
for the channel is still honestly i'm trying to figure it out uh i love automotive stuff
i love the food i travel i really want to do motorbike tours i've been an avid motorcyclist for
30 years so i definitely do some motorbike tours throughout thailand and the reason i named it life
with surge was i kind of wanted to show people some of my life experiences and just take them
along with me the good the bad it's not going to be all you know rainbows and unicorn farts
there's going to be there's going to be some sad things and some unfortunate things fails
so we're just going to journey on and i'm still trying to figure out which way it's going to go
but i try to be very genuine with people and right now i'm kind of on this my first experience niche
and i've been sharing things on youtube about my first experiences here in thailand and i think
that might be a good path for me to go to show people me trying and experiencing things here
for the first time yeah we spoke about this off camera but i think that the most important thing
starting off coming over here because it's so competitive this youtube game everyone's doing it
and there's some really good good youtubers out there you've got to create that journey that's
worth following um you've got the personality i can see you're a good talker you come across as
being authentic and genuine so i i'm pretty um excited to see what's coming next yeah
no i appreciate i am too i mean i love uncertainty to a certain degree that's one of the reasons i
love law enforcement because i never knew what was going to happen day to day and yeah there's
a lot of really good youtubers here there's a lot of people here that i've really enjoyed following
and watching and for me this is enjoyable and i'm doing this because i enjoy it it's not so much
as a job uh i mean of course i would love for the channel to do well and grow but that will only
happen if i make good content and the way i think i can do it is just being genuine and presenting
things that i enjoy and being passionate about it for me passion is everything you know as long as
you have passion about something in life i think that's really makes it important it really comes
across in people when you meet someone who's passionate i saw in a video that you um were
praying to the buddha and i was thinking are you religious or are you buddhist because i
saw you really got into it and you really sat down and you were in the you know you were in
a meditative position i i was and i actually cut that clip a little short because i probably
sat there for a minute or two and i just didn't want to prolong it but uh i'm not religious
necessarily i'm more spiritual but that's one of the things when i first came here is that
buddhism really appealed to me i don't know a whole lot about it to be honest with you i don't
pretend to but i definitely like to learn some more but the whole concept of doing the right
thing doing good appeals to me i've always been like that and i just think that people that have
that kind of mentality have more inner peace and for me it's just always striving to attain inner
peace on a higher level and more self-love so the the praying there i was actually just asking for
you know good passage here in thailand and for to be welcomed here so it's a custom and i love
customs and i like to try and partake in local customs so are you a single man yes i am a single
man so i did not come to thailand to find a wife or to find a girlfriend necessarily actually my
whole goal really is come here to travel and explore and if i meet someone that's great
but that might kind of hinder some of my travels and progress so you know i move forward in life
as i say with open arms and an open heart and i don't know what tomorrow will bring so i think
just being open to any situation really works for me going forward what are you doing for money
well i was fortunate enough from an early age my father's been a financial planner for 30 years and
he really taught me well when my parents moved to the u.s a lot of immigrants they came with nothing
and they were able to build their lives up and have success in their life so i've always planned
ahead for my retirement i also live well below my means i live a relatively frugal lifestyle and i
sold my house i sold everything that i owned in the u.s in the united states i actually came here
with just two suitcases that's those are all my personal belongings so i have some income coming
in from some investments and you know if the youtube channel starts taking off that would be
nice it's not a necessity i enjoy doing it but uh i've used some financial vehicles for retirement
so that's providing me some some basic income to live on okay so you're a clever man well you know
i i had my father really really want to instill this in me to save early on and to plan ahead
and like i said i always live below my means i i don't buy things that i can't afford
and i i'm really not into material possessions i try to keep life simple and i think that's
really important because things nice things are great but uh they necessarily buy you happiness
that's it happiness comes from your heart man absolutely and more people more people can
understand that material things don't bring them happiness it's just being happy internally and
also surround yourself with good people i think that's so much more important than anything you
could have in life is having good friends so that's the next thing if you're going
to stay in thailand and live in a place like bangkok do you have a way of making friends
well i've been here for three weeks uh i know one person i have a one really good close friend
but i still haven't gotten out too much so i'm gonna have to start networking more meeting
people absolutely because i you know i only met a couple people a couple youtubers such as yourself
and i have one really good friend that i've known here for a couple of years but no i definitely
need to get out there and start meeting people and making sure you don't drink alcohol you're right
so it's been about almost seven months i decided to stop drinking alcohol just for health reasons
and i feel so much better so i rarely drink anymore and that's also another reason
for my low expenditure because i'm not out of bars all the time uh you know i might start drinking
again at some point i don't know but i just feel so good i don't really feel like drinking anymore
that's really good man like i think that's the key for long-term success in thailand
drinking a little bit is fine but right you know excessive drinking is like you said off-camera
to me you lose all your money and uh it's not good for the head you make bad decisions
no absolutely if you want to do a long term in thailand that's a good strategy yeah you know
addiction comes in many forms it could be alcohol food making youtube videos trying to watch make
sure you've got enough subscribers clicks views i've fallen into that trap you know what happened
today people left people came uh so absolutely but uh we have to be careful because we all have
addictions of one sort of another and alcohol is one of the more dangerous ones for sure just
enjoy the journey man that's that's the whole plan that's the whole plan hey it was great meeting you
absolutely absolutely and uh so check it out live with surge i'll leave a link in the description
to check it out it's new up and comer coming in here going to take over the show thanks so much
pete watch out he's coming watch out you big boys we got a new boy in town i appreciate your support
and everybody else here in town has been so welcoming very much so cup and cup okay and
thanks very much for watching if you if you have watched all the way to this point and you're not
subscribed please subscribe to this channel we are making we are making movements we're making
waves here and we've got loads more stuff coming on this channel so um yeah we're keeping it real
over here at irish times hit the like button subscribe to the channel leave us a comment
and we'll see you on the next one take care guys and as i always say take care of yourselves
bad boys what you want what you gonna do when surge comes for you