How Jim Early Realized His Passion for Barbecue

I love to hear stories about people who, over time, discover a way to devote the time and effort necessary to fully realize the potential behind their passions. I recently posted a couple of blogs about Nathan Sawata, a former corporate attorney who abandoned his profession to pursue a career (and lifestyle) as a Lego sculptor. You can revisit my posts on Sawata, and watch a speech he gave, here ... and here.

Earlier today, I had the pleasure of listening to another former lawyer, Jim Early, discuss how he eventually left his law practice after 40+ years to devote his life to cooking. More specifically, he commits his time to promoting barbecue (or barbeque or BBQ, depending on where you're from).

Photo: www.jimearly.com

In a nutshell, Early decided around 2000 to research the art of barbecue in North Carolina. He would work 16-hour days Monday through Thursday as a trial attorney, then ride off in his Blazer in search of BBQ joints across the state. Over seven months in 2001, he drove 22,000 miles, ate at nearly 230 barbecue restaurants (both East and West styles) and invested more than 4,000 hours writing a book on the business.

Early had a great observation from his travels, which included every county in the state. He would start every Friday morning finding people and asking them where they went to go eat barbecue. What did he find? That most of the spots had horrible food. Early, an experienced attorney, realized that he was asked people the wrong question.

As it turned out, many people sent him to the closest restaurant ... or the cheapest because that was what they had the time or money to invest in dining. So he quickly changed his question, asking people where they would go to eat BBQ if they were celebrating a special occasion, such as a birthday. The results were much more reliable after that.

Amazing how your results can vary, and your projects can falter or fail, if you are asking people the wrong questions. This is applicable in so many areas: marketing, sales, R&D.

I am also quick to seize on stories that help me better understand various business, so I paid extra attention when Early discussed what it takes for a barbecue shack to produce authentic pit-cooked BBQ. Of the 228 places he ate, only 30 actually used a fire pit to prepare their barbecue (though many tried to give the appearance that they did).

Why did only 13% of the barbecue shacks in the sample use pits to cook? Look no further than costs and liability. According to Early, it can take up to four years to train a pitmaster (the person who oversees the cooking) and then you have to pay them. Restaurateurs also have to buy costly chimney filtration systems, clean up ash regularly and carry extra insurance for pit-cooked BBQ.

So Early found that a number of places would advertise pit-cooked but would actually just toss a little pork fat on an otherwise dormant pit to throw off an "authentic" smell. "Things aren't always what they seem," he said.

Let's go back to the topic of passion. About five years after researching and writing his book, Early took the initiative to form the North Carolina Barbecue Society. Less than a year later, seeing a need for the fledgling group, he quit his law practice after 43 years to devote full-time attention to the society.

These types of stories are encouraging for me as I look to pursue other passions, whether it is blogging and social media or my fledgling interest in beer brewing (which I hope to write more about as I learn more and make my first batch). It is certainly worth everyone's time to regularly evaluate their careers and assess whether their current trajectory is in line with their passions!