We were lucky to catch up with Malton Schexneider recently and have shared our conversation below.
Malton, so good to have you with us today. We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose and so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?
I believe everyone wants to be great at everything they do, including being a great barbecue pitmaster., whether it be in the backyard or on the competition circuit.
My purpose, or as I call it my unique ability is to provide aspiring pitmasters a vision of what is possible and to inspire and motivate them toward that vision so they can realize and achieve their full potential.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
The Hogfathers BBQ started with my brother-in-laws Scott Dudek and me cooking for our large extended family in 2012. As the years went on, fast and easy burgers and dogs on a gas grill was replaced with a low and slow barbecue obsession.
Starting out as a backyard hobby on a vertical electric smoker and Weber Kettle, we quickly replaced upgraded to Traeger Timberline and ultimately upgraded to an Outlaw BFO to accommodate the ever increasing cook requests.
As our skills grew and demand for our cooking increased, we decided to see how good we were by entering the world of barbecue competition.
Our first competition was a KCBS (Kansas City Barbecue Society) rib event in Indiana where we took second place out of 17 teams competing. In 2023, we won first place out of 25 teams.
In September of 2023, we became the official pitmasters for Grill Masters Supply of Louisville to cook and promote their smokers at their monthly live radio events.
The Hogfather Mission: Craft Excellent Barbecue. Give Back to the Louisville Community. Have Fun In The Process.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
I believe our fundamental quality is our focus on progress toward achieving a goal that is bigger and better than where we are now.
In order to achieve our goal, we needed to be first COMMITTED to taking the necessary action to reaching that goal.
Once the commitment to reaching the goal was made, the next step in our progress was to have the COURAGE to move forward even in the presence of fear, discomfort, and uncertainty.
As a result of the commitment made and the courage to move forward, our CAPABILITIES increased, which, in turn, elevated our CONFIDENCE to reaching bigger and better future outcomes.
Okay, so before we go, is there anyone you’d like to shoutout for the role they’ve played in helping you develop the essential skills or overcome challenges along the way?
There have been days when we made mistakes, when we ran into trouble, when we got discouraged, when we just wanted to quit.
Those are the times when we needed a different perspective to help us look at our situation differently. That’s when we enlisted the help of a coach or a mentor.
If you pick the right mentor, and if you will listen to them, they can save you from making the same mistakes they made.
Look. If someone has spent years mastering their craft, and have been where you are and where you want to go, then they probably have some pearls of wisdom that they would be able to give if they were mentoring you in your journey.
The mentors in our journey have saved us countless hours of trial and error.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://TheHogfathersBBQ.com
- Facebook: https://Facebook.com/TheHogfathersBBQ
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheHogfathersBBQ
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
