American Operator

Thanksgiving Reflections: Why Small Business Still Matters | JC | AO 43

• Joseph Cabrera

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On this Thanksgiving episode, JC reflects on gratitude, community, and what we lose when convenience replaces connection. It’s a reminder that Main Street still does something Amazon never will: bring people together.

JC Talks About:
 🔴 How the holiday rush buries gratitude and intention.
 🔴 The difference between mass-produced gifts and Main Street craftsmanship.
 🔴 Why small businesses shape our culture and community.
 🔴 The human connection you only find in local shops.
 🔴 Supporting small business as a way to participate in the American Dream.

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00:00:00:02 - 00:00:18:09
Unknown
All right, team, happy Thanksgiving. If you're tuning in right now, you're probably on a plane, on a bus and a car, or maybe even on horseback. Getting to family. I actually have kind of a personal policy that if I don't have to travel for Thanksgiving, and my wife and I can just do something at home, we do just because it is chaos.

00:00:18:11 - 00:00:36:06
Unknown
So I wish you safe travels, and I hope that it is not kind of make whatever, hopefully not stressful event with your family more stressful. So happy traveling. And where are you headed to? I wanted to share a few notes just before we kick you off. And then Thanksgiving here. I want to make this short and sweet.

00:00:36:08 - 00:00:55:05
Unknown
Just some thoughts and some reflections that I have about this time of year, but really about kind of what I'm grateful for. In America, we kind of share around the table, right? Everybody goes around typically during Thanksgiving and shares like what they're grateful for. For me, I'll share kind of one of the things that that just I'm always grateful for.

00:00:55:11 - 00:01:19:19
Unknown
But in particular this time of year and this particular year, I'm really grateful for small businesses and owners who run them. Now, why we live in this world where like after Thanksgiving, you got Black Friday and you got all this rhetoric coming down and they going to be bopping you on the face, you're going to have too much Instagram feed that you can even deal with about everything you need to buy in this deal only.

00:01:19:19 - 00:01:42:12
Unknown
And I feel like Black Friday has become black. Like the month is whole, like sales all month long. There's no it's not a single day anymore. And admittedly, it just becomes for me, it's become a little point of frustration and kind of a hole in my soul because the idea behind a gift is that, you know, they say that the thought is the only thing that counts or the thought matters.

00:01:42:12 - 00:02:02:12
Unknown
You've probably heard a lot of things. One of my favorite saying that actually is like a mother Teresa saying is like, if it doesn't hurt, you haven't really gave something. And there's zero pain ordering anything on Amazon. None. You just click on a thing. You probably even recommended that based on what your dad or mom has been searching, here's what to get them.

00:02:02:14 - 00:02:24:11
Unknown
Could there be anything more soulless than that? Like just you probably even have it delivered to them in the brown box that came from Amazon is just nothing special about that experience. Nothing. Whereas you get these awesome small businesses, right? One of my favorite small towns in Texas is Georgetown. Now. It's grown quite a bit, but you got this awesome square, and I'm sure you got something near your hometown like this too.

00:02:24:12 - 00:02:51:15
Unknown
They got these great shops, they got a bake shop, you got a trinket shop, they got an all leather workshop. They got an old outfitter out there. All these places have these, like, curated items, you know, they only they can't afford to buy big warehouse wholesale things they can only buy from like small batch things. Right? Whether it's small batch peanut brittle to small batch ammo holsters that you hold, you know, 36 rounds in that it's made out of leather, like it's some cool stuff in there.

00:02:51:17 - 00:03:09:18
Unknown
And you might say, well, it's pretty expensive just because I got a few things in there. Yeah. It's expensive. It's probably way more than you're going to buy anything you'll find on Amazon. But here's the difference. Let me give you two examples of how you give a gift over the holiday. One is the Amazon box shows up. Your dad or mom texts you, says, hey, I got this in.

00:03:09:18 - 00:03:24:07
Unknown
Is it for me? Yeah, yeah, it's for me. Great. Thanks for the socks. Whatever you ordered. I don't know what the heck you got them. Or you go Christmas time and you have it wrapped and you give it to this person, and you go, they open it up, and I'm a I'm a hunter. So I'll share this game.

00:03:24:07 - 00:03:44:03
Unknown
You open it up and it's just like you can tell it's handmade leather. Smells like couch your grandfather probably had in his den. And it's this little ammo holster or a belt or something. And you can just tell this thing is going to last a long. Time's got patina. It's like overbuilt. And then you go, I found this in my local shop.

00:03:44:05 - 00:04:05:10
Unknown
Talk to Larry. He runs this shop. He gets it from this artisan that only makes about 45 a year. And in that particular caliber. And it's actually the last thing and a half of that cognac color. After that, they're even changing the logo. And I just like you to grab the last one. That's a gift. I mean, like, that's I'm I'm holding on for the rest of my life.

00:04:05:12 - 00:04:23:13
Unknown
The socks it probably throw out right away or I'm going to that's like going to go in the regift pile. And so like I guess my thought behind saying all this is I'm grateful for small business. The same way that I'm grateful for people who still, still write good songs and good music. It's like lyrics in a song.

00:04:23:15 - 00:04:40:12
Unknown
There is a song that every once in a while in today's world comes out on the radio and I go, man, that's well written. That used to be the way we shopped. It used to be the way we got gifts for people. It used to be the way that we like, told folks we were thinking of them. Now we don't do that.

00:04:40:14 - 00:04:55:22
Unknown
And so this is also just a kind of a power move for y'all out there to be able to like, just go to your small town, enjoy the experience. The other reason I'm grateful for small business is because of the experience. If you ever go in there, likely the owner sitting there and was great about small businesses, you get to have this conversation.

00:04:55:22 - 00:05:18:10
Unknown
They are part of the community. They're not like some faceless organization. This is probably somebody you go to church with, somebody you run into at the restaurant or whatever it might be. These are folks. Are you going to see again? What's cool about seeing these folks again is that you have this connection. I got to go to Brandon Quality Meat Market in Brenham, Texas, and one of the coolest thing about that butcher shop is the fact that it is part of people's ritual.

00:05:18:12 - 00:05:33:20
Unknown
They go there every other day to buy the ground beef. So yeah, I'm thinking I'm going to go there to buy a ribeye once in a while as a special occasion, which you can do. But what's also need is they go there just for the ground beef. Every third day there's a guy walked in, one of the teammates there was like, oh, that's, you know, so-and-so.

00:05:34:02 - 00:05:51:00
Unknown
And I know what he's going to order. He's going to order. This particular Lee's in order a pan of this kind of ground beef, whatever it might be. They just know him. He comes in, they already have it ready to catch up on the football, the game last night, how their kids are doing all those things. Then he goes out and leaves.

00:05:51:00 - 00:06:06:03
Unknown
Now, I don't know what he's going to do with that. Maybe cooking some bolognaise or some chili, whatever he's doing. But what's cool about that is that my perspective is that this is not just a guy behind me to a store. He's going out there having a great conversation, catching with some friends and people he enjoys. And then he's off.

00:06:06:03 - 00:06:26:11
Unknown
He goes. It's just so much better. It's like what Thanksgiving's all about anyways, right? Slowing down, hanging out with people you care about, having thoughtful conversations and then headed out because God knows the food ain't that good. Like I have a it's probably an episode for a whole nother time. I just maybe I just haven't gone to the right place to have Thanksgiving, but it is rough, man, I have.

00:06:26:17 - 00:06:46:06
Unknown
I will debate this with folks often that the food must be. There's some folks who will fight me on how good Thanksgiving food is, and I'm like, it's so good. We only have it once a year. Like, if it's that good, why aren't we eating it every single day? But again, I digress. Point is, is that these small businesses and some of these small businesses are still chunky, right?

00:06:46:06 - 00:07:04:21
Unknown
Like your local lumber yard is probably a pretty healthy sized business, but you still get to see people meet people in our community with folks in the community. So on this Thanksgiving, in addition to well-earned time with your family and friends, which is important, catching up on some football, catching up on some stories, and just a hard year.

00:07:04:21 - 00:07:32:10
Unknown
Well earned. I'd ask you to just consider supporting small business again. It's not going to be the cheapest place you go to, and it's probably going to be slightly inconvenient to get there. But the reality of it is when you get there, you'll never regret it. I'm never have you go to these small businesses. You spend time with the people, usually going to walk away feeling pretty good about yourself, and you are directly impacting that economy.

00:07:32:16 - 00:08:00:20
Unknown
You're directly impacting the food these owners get to put on the table the employees that they employ, everything. There's just something about that I just believe in wholeheartedly believe tribes and communities should take care of each other. I believe this is still one of the last ways we can do that in America, which is giving folks our hurt, hard earned dollars out of our pocket and giving it to their pocket and knowing that's going to go nowhere else except to go feed their families, put diesel in the truck, do all those things like it just feels good.

00:08:00:20 - 00:08:24:16
Unknown
And then guess what? You get this peanut brittle or leather wallet or whatever, you're getting something in return, but you're also like part of building this American dream. So I hope you have a great American Thanksgiving. I hope you get to enjoy well-earned time with the family, and I hope you get a chance to go out there and take a look at these small businesses and support them.

00:08:24:17 - 00:08:40:18
Unknown
It's one of the final. It's like one of those. It's like one of those last places in our country, at least for today, that I think really embodies the values in which this whole experiment called the American Dream, started with Happy Thanksgiving, y'all. We'll see you on the next episode.

00:08:40:18 - 00:09:06:14
Unknown
Thanks for tuning in to the American Operator Podcast, where we celebrate the backbone of America small business owners and operators like you. If you've enjoyed today's episode, be sure to subscribe so you'll never miss out on more of these stories and insights from people who keep our community strong. Until next time, keep building, keep operating, and keep America moving forward.