Announcer 0:00
From Los Angeles. This is the Echelon Radio Network.

Jerri Hemsworth 0:10
Hi. This is Jerri Hemsworth with the Echelon Radio Podcast. And today I’m sitting with, well, it’s a great honor. I’ve known Sean Hart for a number of years and Sean never ceases to amaze me. I think it was only a couple years ago I found out what his passion is when he’s not doing mortgages. But enough about me, Sean. How are you today?

Sean Hart 0:37
Hey, I’m great.

Jerri Hemsworth 0:38
Good, good, good, good. So you are with CMG Home Loans?

Sean Hart 0:42
yes.

Jerri Hemsworth 0:43
okay, and you have been in the mortgage industry for how long?

Sean Hart 0:51
I actually did my first home loan in 1985

Jerri Hemsworth 0:55
Oh, my God.

Sean Hart 0:55
We didn’t have to be licensed then.

Jerri Hemsworth 0:57
Seriously?

Sean Hart 0:59
So a lot has changed in the world. But for our listeners, 1985 was 12% interest rates, 15% interest rates, and I couldn’t make a living.

Jerri Hemsworth 1:08
right.

Sean Hart 1:08
So I left and went into the insurance business. And then many years later, 1998 came back. Yes, been licensed, and, of course, licensed, and ever since.

Jerri Hemsworth 1:17
And what is it about being a mortgage broker that lights your fire, as a professional?

Sean Hart 1:23
I love handing the keys to somebody and seeing their new life. I love what home ownership is, starting a family, being part of a neighborhood, being able to do whatever you want to the house, right? There’s the financial side of it. You know, you’ve capped your living expenses as far as your home expenses are going to be, but you also get the tax write off. So there’s so much more. You know, the memories you’re going to build. Marking your kids height on the wall or on the door jam, right? Remember all that, right? The holidays, the experiences, the photographs having family over, right? It’s all of that. It just lights me up.

Jerri Hemsworth 2:06
And you were, well, let’s you have a long story of getting to mortgage brokerage and where did you grow up?

Sean Hart 2:18
Well actually, I’m originally from Montana. Ah, yeah, originally from Montana.

Jerri Hemsworth 2:23
I’m a country kid. My family groups are Montana as well.

Sean Hart 2:26
Really?

Jerri Hemsworth 2:26
Yeah, my grandfather was born there and and his whole family were cowboys, actual, old time cowboys up there.

Sean Hart 2:32
Mine were mine were minors, and, yeah, coincidental. Wonder where that fits in. Yeah, where does that fit in later?

Jerri Hemsworth 2:41
Spoiler alert.

Sean Hart 2:43
So that’s my background. And then we moved and went into the Seattle area. Was in the Seattle area for quite, quite a while, and then adventures took us to California and pretty much been here ever since.

Jerri Hemsworth 2:56
What was it like for you to move from Montana to Seattle because your relatives, like you said, were miners and stone masons. Okay. So very outdoorsy people. And then you moved to Seattle, which is a very different environment. What was that like for you?

Sean Hart 3:19
Well, fortunately, we were in more of the rural setting of Seattle. I wasn’t in Seattle proper. So I was building tree forts. I was building ground forts. I mean, we were playing army men. We were doing all the stuff that you did back then, right, right out, actually, in the forest. I’m, I’m shocked, because there was bears and mountain lions, yeah, and we’re 6,7, 9 year old kids running around in the forest, and had no clue that there was animals like that out there,

Jerri Hemsworth 3:52
yeah, but I think it’s that, it’s that youthful innocence, you know, that allows you to play and not worry. It’s probably your your mom was probably, or maybe she’s like, Oh, maybe one, maybe the bears will one.

Sean Hart 4:07
Well, you know, we were out riding our bikes and doing the tree fort stuff, and we just had to be home by the time the street lights came on. I mean, I literally grew up in that, you know, drinking water from a garden hose

Jerri Hemsworth 4:16
us too.

Sean Hart 4:17
Pulling carrots and vegetables out of the garden and washing them off and eating him right there, you know, I had that, and I try to recreate that now for my kids and grandkids.

Jerri Hemsworth 4:26
I want to back up to Montana, talk to me about your grandfather,

Sean Hart 4:32
great grandfather.

Jerri Hemsworth 4:33
great grandfather. And what was he into? What was he like?

Sean Hart 4:39
He was heck on wheels. Heck on wheels, yeah. He had quite the reputation. And he would tear tear up the mining, and he would head to town, and often find his way to the bar.

Jerri Hemsworth 4:53
okay.

Sean Hart 4:54
And lots of adventures would come out of that bar.

Jerri Hemsworth 4:56
Oh, God, good stories I bet.

Sean Hart 4:58
That’s a story, some I can’t tell.

Jerri Hemsworth 5:00
yeah.

Sean Hart 5:00
And what, one of the most endearing, and I think is funny, is he, because of his stone mason, when the mining, when the we’d get to, when the winter would shut the mines down, okay, they’d go into town. And because of his stone mason background, he would be working on fireplaces. He worked on the fireplaces the Grand Lodge in Yellowstone, and many of the wealthy farmers and families he would come work on. But this one particular story, he he built a jail they needed. They needed a jail because the town was growing and they were having some people that needed to be in jail. So he actually the bars, the steel. It was a rock building. It was actually made of local rock, right? Sure. And he went back to that bar that night and got super drunk and got into bench trouble, and he was actually the first person to be put back in the jail that he just built.

so he built it, and was the first resident,

the first resident,

Jerri Hemsworth 5:56
nice, nice. Oh, that’s cool. What kind of mining did he do?

Sean Hart 6:01
Silver and gold,

Jerri Hemsworth 6:02
silver and gold, and is silver mined the same way as gold.

Sean Hart 6:08
pretty much.

Jerri Hemsworth 6:08
really, okay, and there’s

Sean Hart 6:11
Initially gold. Silver is processed differently because silver comes in different ores, I’ll call it right where gold you’re typically going right after it.

Jerri Hemsworth 6:21
so you now fast forwarding. You get to Seattle, you make your way, your family makes its way down to California. You did a stint in insurance for a little bit, and then back into mortgage. At what point did you tell me about how you got into your I can’t even call it a hobby, because it’s more than a hobby for you. Tell us about what you love to do when you’re not doing mortgages.

Sean Hart 6:58
Well, I started out fishing, camping, being outdoors, dirt bikes, that kind of thing. And I was scanning the the TV Guide, and I ran across a show about gold mining, and I just landed on it, started watching it, and it reminded me that, you know, oh, that’s in my family. That’s in my background. I should, you know, I should watch this, you know.

Jerri Hemsworth 7:19
let’s check this out.

Sean Hart 7:20
And they started showing the rivers and the valleys and the mountains and the areas where people were placer gold mining. And I said, I’ve camped near there, I’ve fished near there. I’ve, I think I’ve been there, you know. And I dawned on me that I’m probably walking over and boating over, you know, lots of gold, so I should probably go and try it, yeah, and talk to my neighbor. And we grabbed some we said, Okay, let’s go. Is there a place? And we joined a club, and they had an outing, and we grabbed a tent and some gear, and off we went.

Jerri Hemsworth 7:55
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And what happened on that, your first time out, you’re hanging out. You’re learning stuff. What happened on that outing?

Sean Hart 8:06
What they do is they put you to work first for the common dig, right? So they work you pretty hard

Jerri Hemsworth 8:12
the chain gang.

Sean Hart 8:13
yes. So get some gold for the group.

Jerri Hemsworth 8:16
Gotcha.

Sean Hart 8:16
Okay. And everyone who participates gets a little share, right? And then there’s free time, so we grab our mining equipment, and we run down to the river, we put it in, we get it going, and we didn’t really know what we were doing, but there was a very nice man there who had the actual model of unit that we had, and he showed us what to do. And we went to mining and had no clue what we were doing, and probably dangerous. And, you know, just this fall, exactly, exactly. And, yeah, it came time to stop. And so we stopped, and we lift up the flap on the sluice box. I looked inside, and there was gold speckled all over the mat.

Jerri Hemsworth 8:53
Oh, oh, what happened? What did you say?

Sean Hart 8:57
That was it? I was absolutely hooked. I mean, you could, I can tell you the day, the time, what I was wearing. I can tell you the moment that all of this happened, and I was fixated on that gold. I mean, it was bang, I’ve got it fish on. I was hooked, end of story. Like I’m doing this, like I knew right then and there this would be a part of my life. Going forward,

how much gold was in the sluice?

I don’t know, 30 bucks, 50 bucks, I don’t know. Wasn’t that much. No, it wasn’t. It wasn’t that. It was this, you know, I’m retiring. I’ve hit the motherland. It wasn’t that okay. It was we went out with simple tools and very little understanding, and actually produced enough gold to pay for the gas that got us there. So maybe we could do more of this, and maybe we need bigger equipment, and that leads to the rest of what’s happened over the last, you know, couple decades of doing it?

Jerri Hemsworth 9:48
And and explain to the listeners what is placer mining.

Sean Hart 9:56
So placer mining is gold that’s already that’s been released from the rock. Okay, it’s right there. You look at it, it’s gold, it’s it’s laying there. It’s a nugget, it’s a flake, it’s a speck, it’s an you know, sometimes it’s chunky, sometimes it’s not so chunky. But, you know, gold is 19 times heavier than the dirt and the strata and the water that it’s in.

Jerri Hemsworth 10:15
Okay.

Sean Hart 10:16
So that’s why we use water to help separate using sluice boxes and other cleanup equipment, gold pans. That’s why we use them, because the gold is so much heavier that basically we’re doing material handling by weight.

Jerri Hemsworth 10:29
Okay.

Sean Hart 10:30
And so we’re trying to get to the gold, which is going to be the one of the most heaviest things at the end of the day, when you’re, you know, finishing up.

Jerri Hemsworth 10:36
And is this one of the easier types of mining?

Sean Hart 10:39
It’s easier than hard rock mining, yeah, it’s easier than silver mining, yeah.

Jerri Hemsworth 10:43
And what is hard rock mining?

Sean Hart 10:44
Hard Rock is typically when the gold is still trapped in the rock, okay, okay, got pushed up, probably by a volcanic action, and it’s been shot up when it was very hot and it cooled and settled in some quartz. Usually, yes, and we’re going back in to those those tunnels, usually you can find an outcropping of quartz on the surface, is what the old timers were looking for. So they would work their way up the creek, okay, or a stream.

Jerri Hemsworth 11:09
So they would find a stream, because that was common for it to come down that way.

Sean Hart 11:13
Yes, because erosion, yeah, and time had fractured the rock. Weathering, ice freezing fractures the rock, the gold falls out Sure, and then the gold works its way down the mountain into the stream, and then floods come through and concentrate the gold. And that’s what they were after. They were after what we call pay streaks, which are lines of gold in the bottom of the river that’s laid in by natural forces.

Jerri Hemsworth 11:38
Gotcha.

Sean Hart 11:39
And then when they would get up a stream, and all of a sudden the gold would stop, and they would go, Well, okay, well, how did it get here? And they would start looking up the valley sides, and they would go up to find the load, okay, which is the outcropping where the weathering occurred. And then they would drive shafts. They would test it, of course, and then if it was rich enough, they would drive shafts down. And that’s how gold mine started, is they would drive a shaft down on that outcropping, following the vein

Jerri Hemsworth 12:08
Gotcha, hence the mother lode got it

Sean Hart 12:12
right.

Jerri Hemsworth 12:12
okay, and so you were placer mining, and how long? When was that? What year was that that you started plaster mining?

Sean Hart 12:25
Around 2000

Jerri Hemsworth 12:26
2000 so we’re talking 24 years, basically, of of playing in the gold world. But something happened somewhere. What happened to take you into a little bit different direction from Placer mining?

Sean Hart 12:47
Well, you know, you make friends and acquaintances and lifelong friends actually, in this hobby, for me, it’s maybe a little more than a hobby, but, yeah, I’ve made met some amazing people, and I’ve had some amazing mentors and guides along the way, and we’ve stayed connected. And those friends know friends and things happen. And through these connections, I met a team of guys that were hard rock mining,

Jerri Hemsworth 13:13
where?

Sean Hart 13:15
out in the desert,

Jerri Hemsworth 13:15
out in the desert of California?

Sean Hart 13:17
California, yes. Okay, yeah. And those that introduction and those relationships led to an offer to become part of their, their team.

Jerri Hemsworth 13:26
Oh, wow.

Sean Hart 13:27
And hence, and that that’s what took off.

Jerri Hemsworth 13:31
And one day, your team, which is called Mine Operator.

Mine Operator, that’s right, you guys get a call. What was that call?

Sean Hart 13:42
The call was from a production company looking for junior miners, small miners, small, you know, small team mining, And they wanted to interview us for a TV show. And we’re like, oh, really, yeah, because our first thought was, we don’t want to be on TV. We don’t want anybody know what we’re doing. We don’t want anybody coming out here picking our gold like this is hard work. We’ve earned it. This is our little corner, our little thing we’ve made for ourselves, and we don’t want to share so why would we, you know, expose ourselves? Exactly right? And they came back and they said, You know what, it really isn’t about that. Why don’t you watch some of the episodes and kind of familiarize yourself. And so we did a screen test. We agreed to a screen test, and they got us all on screen and asked us questions. And I guess one thing led to another, and they said, Okay, we think you guys would be a great episode. We really love your story and what you’re doing, and we want to take it to the world.

Jerri Hemsworth 14:42
And which show was that?

Sean Hart 14:43
it’s called Mine Rescue,

Jerri Hemsworth 14:45
Mine Rescue. And it’s on?

Sean Hart 14:47
Discovery Channel.

Jerri Hemsworth 14:47
Discovery Channel, yeah, there’s a you and I were talking about this a while ago, over a year ago, I think. And there’s a couple of guys that have a couple of shows. Yeah, on Discovery. And who are these guys,

Sean Hart 15:02
Freddie and Juan.

Jerri Hemsworth 15:03
Freddie and Juan.

Sean Hart 15:04
yeah, yeah, and they’re off. It’s the whole gold rush. You know, Gold Rush started, and then it’s off. Yes, more shows have come out from it. And so Gold Rush mine rescue.

Jerri Hemsworth 15:15
Mine rescue

Sean Hart 15:16
is the show that ultimately came to us and we shot an episode and and

Jerri Hemsworth 15:20
it just aired, just aired, yeah, yes, week so on Discovery plus, I even subscribed to discovery plus, so I could see it that day. And fascinating, because I had no clue. I knew you were mining. I had no clue the danger that you face when you go out and do the hard mining. And my husband and I Brian, we said, Nope, can’t get me in there. What is it in you? And that says I’m I’m putting aside my fear. I’m going down in that tunnel, and I’m gonna pick at the rock. How do you how do you face that? How do you do that?

Sean Hart 16:10
You know, it’s almost second nature. We just do it. Yeah, we don’t really stop and think about it or contemplate it. We don’t really tell our wives about that part

Jerri Hemsworth 16:19
not to or kids. Keep that quiet between us. Don’t tell your dogs, yeah.

Sean Hart 16:24
And there is a passion to what this like, what our country was built on, being self sufficient, right? And just striking out on your own and being able to make it, and whether that’s working my day job and producing home loans and making housing dreams come true for families, or whether it’s my passion, digging and producing gold and just getting I can’t tell you how satisfying it is at the end of the day to have put so much mental and physical work into something. And some days it’s a few dollars, some days it’s many more dollars, right? But it, for me, it isn’t about the dollars, right? There’s a there’s a poem about mining, and it’s not just to paraphrase it. It isn’t so much about having the gold. It’s finding the gold. So going into these older areas and trying to decipher what the old timers were doing. Why were they doing that? Why is this piece of equipment here, what what was going on? And then piecing that together, and then going in and making your own discovery based upon, perhaps a roadmap or design that someone else had done before you 150 years ago, and then piecing that together, and then putting the effort in, and then you hit something, and it’s really rewarding, right?

Jerri Hemsworth 17:49
Yeah, yeah, overcoming the challenges, yeah, to get to forgive the pun, the nugget of everything,

Sean Hart 17:58
well, I tell you, you know, nuggets are few and far between. They’re not really super easy to find, right? Because the old timers were pretty good at finding the big stuff, right? But when you find one, I remember where I was. I remember the spot where that was. I could take you back to places I found chunks of gold. You’ve seen some of it, yes, right?

Jerri Hemsworth 18:13
Yes.

Sean Hart 18:14
And they’re almost like my kids, like people say, Well, why don’t you sell your gold? And why don’t you it’s locked away in the safety deposit. Are you kidding me? I don’t keep it around. Number one and number two, they’re so unique and special to me that I couldn’t part with them unless I had to. And you know, I’ve had hard times. You know, there have been up and down. There been recessions. There have been a lot of tough, difficult times in the real estate business. And I’ve sold gold, I’ve I’ve paid for my expenses gold mining before, so I have that there as a backup.

Jerri Hemsworth 18:46
right, right.

Sean Hart 18:47
But I also have little chunks of treasure that you know are very fulfilling,

Jerri Hemsworth 18:52
absolutely. And it’s not about the value, it’s about the story and the overcoming what you had to go through, and the joy of finding it, I would imagine, and that is more precious than than the actual dollar value I would imagine. You and I were talking a few months ago about gold in California versus other places. Tell the listeners how much gold is in California, still.

Sean Hart 19:28
more than you can imagine, more than your your finite brain can encapsulize, right? There’s so much gold in California that we literally could have a different country and a different world around it. California is the number one state in the United States for gold. Oregon has gold. Nevada has gold. Arizona. There are quite a few states where gold has been commercially mined throughout the United States, but California truly is the Golden State.

Jerri Hemsworth 19:56
Unbelievable. that I was always taught, you know, Sutter’s Mill and the gold miners, and I thought my, my own perception, was okay, they got the gold out of California.

Sean Hart 20:08
Oh, no,

Jerri Hemsworth 20:08
I’m done.

Sean Hart 20:09
No, no, no, no, no.

Jerri Hemsworth 20:10
And that’s what, when you and I were talking, I had no idea that there’s that much gold left and still can be mined. I mean, for generations to come, I would imagine.

Sean Hart 20:23
Oh absolutely, it would be life changing if we were allowed to get in and go, go back and claim what’s there.

Jerri Hemsworth 20:31
So now, circling back to your profession and working with clients. Do you see, I mean, as an outsider, I see the parallel. Do you see the parallel between working so hard for these clients that might have challenges, and also what you do with gold mining?

Sean Hart 20:55
You know, I didn’t to me. It’s kind of second nature. I you know, breaking into the real estate business and the mortgage business wasn’t easy at the time. I did it okay. I’ve had huge obstacles with interest rates and clients and bad credit and lots of other reasons

Jerri Hemsworth 21:13
kind of out of your control.

Sean Hart 21:15
very out of out of control, right? Yes. So to me, it was just, I have to support my family, right? Got a mortgage, got overhead, car insurance, bills, health insurance, all the stuff we all have. I gotta get busy. Okay. So I got busy, and I didn’t realize that I was working just as hard at piecing difficult loans together for people as I was in my passion out trying to find pieces of gold, you know, and really what it was you. It was you that brought it to me. It was you that brought it to me and said, Do you really realize these two things are side by side, that you’re really doing the same thing?

Jerri Hemsworth 21:52
Yes.

Sean Hart 21:52
I actually didn’t. It was, it was really eye opening and freeing.

Jerri Hemsworth 21:57
good, oh.

Sean Hart 21:58
when you brought that to me, it’s like, wow, I’m kind of doing what I’m supposed to be doing, you know, like, it just really was very freeing and and opened me up to possibilities and new things and, and it’s actually reflecting in my my production now at work.

Jerri Hemsworth 22:15
nice.

Sean Hart 22:16
you know, the staff I have around me, the the tools I have available to me. It just makes producing a home loan for a family a lot easier, a lot cheaper, right, and fulfilling for both parties, right? It’s a win. Win. The customer gets a great experience and home, and I feel great helping them.

Jerri Hemsworth 22:39
I bet there are no mistakes. Sean.

Sean Hart 22:43
thank you for pointing that out, because it really, has really put a spring in my step.

Jerri Hemsworth 22:48
That’s good.

Sean Hart 22:49
It’s easy to get, you know, at the time where we’re talking about this, interest rates are not in the best place right at all, and actually been going up. So it makes it even worse. So it’s really easy to focus on the negative sides of things, right? Oh, I can’t do this because of this, or, Oh, I can’t because of that. And, you know, that’s all just self defeating, like, step on that, that thing and throw it out. Okay? And when you brought that to me about about tying those two things together, it’s like the determination. When I’m tired at the end of the day and I haven’t gotten a lot of gold, that doesn’t stop me I get the next day, and I work even harder, right? Well, I’m doing that at work, and I’ve done it at work for decades, and I’ve helped 1000s of people, right, right? And I just didn’t tie the two together. And since you brought that to me, I tell you, it’s just very freeing. So thank you. Thank you

Jerri Hemsworth 23:34
You’re very welcome.

Sean Hart 23:35
It’s been a real treat. You’ve really helped me.

Jerri Hemsworth 23:37
Thank you. I’m glad. I’m so glad, and I know your reputation does truly precede you for helping the clients who might have a difficult situation, and for what you do for them at CMG Home Loans is really, really awesome to hear. You know, we do talk about you behind your back. I’ll just be right up there with you about how amazing the deals are that you do for clients, and you just need to know that when we do talk about you, it’s all amazing, great stories. So

Sean Hart 24:14
It’s advocacy, it’s client advocacy, and it’s not taking no for an answer, right? I just don’t take no, and I’m a client’s advocate to the last I really am.

Jerri Hemsworth 24:24
That’s it. So thank you for being that because somebody who’s not in that industry and not really knowing that industry, it’s a little scary when we come and say, Okay, we need to either refi or home equity line of credit, or we want to sell, or we want to buy, and we put a lot of trust in in people that are in the industry, like yourself, and we just don’t want to be ripped off or anything like that. So what’s beautiful is to be able to refer people to you and say, Don’t worry, Sean’s got you. Sean’s gotcha, this is you’re you’re in such amazing hands, and thank you for being that person that we can refer people to.

Sean Hart 25:07
You’re welcome. You’re welcome. I love it

Jerri Hemsworth 25:09
Thank you so much for being with me today. I really love your story. We just published it in the q3 2024, issue of Echelon Professional Magazine. You can check it out online. It’s it’s such a I could talk to you for hours about mining, because it’s such a foreign thing to myself, and I’m fascinated by what you love to do. Thank you.

Sean Hart 25:35
Thank you. Thank you. Jerri, It’s been my treat.

Jerri Hemsworth 25:37
Ah, love it. Thanks.

Announcer 25:47
Presented by Echelon Business Development. More than just networking. Way more.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai