What My Internationally Working Partner Noticed in Latvia About People, Infrastructure, and Lifestyle

This episode is a bit different.

If you’ve been listening for a while, you probably know that I pay attention to patterns, and numbers are one of those things. At the time I recorded this, the episode number matched my age, so I decided to make it more personal.

I invited Scott to join me. Scott is my partner, and he’s also someone who has spent years working with people from different countries. He travels, he observes, and he has his own way of looking at things—sometimes similar to mine, sometimes very different.

You hear me talk about business, culture, health, and personal experiences, but you don’t hear the person who sees me outside of this space. So this conversation is that.

We talk about working internationally, about people, about Latvia through his eyes, and also about how perspective changes depending on where you come from.
Some parts are light. Some go deeper, but it’s all a real conversation, which we started joking around, as we usually do.

At some point, it shifted into more serious topics—people, culture, history, and, of course, food.
One thing that stayed with me is how easy it is to misunderstand people when you’re in a different environment. You expect one kind of interaction, and you get another. For example, here in the Southeastern United States, you walk into a store, someone will look at you, smile, call you honey, sugar, or baby, and it’s normal. In Latvia, nobody does that. You walk in, you do what you came to do, and you leave. That doesn’t mean people are unfriendly. It just means they are not trying to interact unless there is a reason.

Same with work. You think a meeting at 8:00 means one thing. Someone else thinks it means something slightly different. Nobody announces it. You just figure it out.
There was also a part of the conversation in which we talked more directly about Latvia. Walking into the city. Seeing how everything is close together. Not needing a car. Those are small things, but they change how you live.

From a business perspective, there was one simple idea that I liked: pay attention to details.
Even something like how a city is built changes how people move, where they spend time, and how businesses work around them.
If you’re working with people from different countries or thinking about it, this episode will probably make you notice things you didn’t pay attention to before.

We also talked about food. Here, in the US, we are on a very strict diet. There, he ate everything. A lot. And still managed to lose weight, which says more about food quality than any theory.

Then the conversation went deeper. We talked about history in a way that connects to people. When you go to places like the Occupation Museum or the Corner House, and you connect that to someone you know, you experience everything more viscerally. It’s not just information anymore.

There is also a personal side to this episode.
If you’ve been listening for a while, you’ll probably notice it.
If not, you’ll get a sense of it here.
That’s it.

To hear episode 56 on Podbean, click the image below.
You can also find it on your preferred podcast platform.