The Holy Grail of Investing: How Senate Eskridge Builds Diversified Passive Income

Senate Eskrigde (00:00)
The last piece I want to mention to your point earlier,

about diversification being so, so important, right? And I really wanna make sure that people understand what diversification really means. And the most important aspect in my opinion of diversification is correlation. a great quote by Ray Dalio, one of the biggest hedge fund managers in the world that says, the holy grail of investing is to have 10 to 12 truly

uncorrelated assets in your portfolio.

Quentin (02:07)
Hello everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host Q Edmonds and I’m excited to be here today. I have a fantastic guest. This is going to be fun. I really believe and really know that you guys are about to get some really, really good information. The two D’s that I wrote down when this gentleman started talking was diversification and diligence.

I think you’re going to find once he starts talking, he’s going to be hard to beat when it talks about diversification and diligence. People may know what to do, but some people are just not diligent enough to do it. And I think this is what set this gentleman apart. And so I am so excited to announce this strong name. Like I love this dude’s name. I want to introduce you all to Mr. Senate Eskridge. Mr. Senate, how you doing today, sir?

Senate Eskrigde (03:03)
I’m so good. Thank you so much for having me here on your podcast. I’m excited to hang out with you for the next little while and meet all your audience. Thank you so much for having.

Quentin (03:11)
man, I’m so glad you’re here and Sinit, I’m the type. I don’t like to waste no time, man. I want to dive in. And so I would love for you to tell the people what your main focus is these days, right? If you could give us a little bit of an origin story, kind of the hero’s journey, how you got to where you are now. We love origin stories. And then man, tell them what part of the world you’re in. People love to know where you are geographically, especially if they like, ⁓ he’s super close. Maybe I can connect with him, collaborate with him. And so.

what you’re doing, origin story, and where you are. Mr. Senate sir you have the floor.

Senate Eskrigde (03:47)
Got it, thank you so much. Yeah, so what I help people do now is access diversified private equity investments, right? So everybody knows that when you invest in the stock market, quote unquote, right, into those kinds of equities, you have to diversify, but they really don’t understand really what that means. And I truly bring out 10 to 15 diversified investments that are completely uncorrelated from each other every year.

Quentin (03:48)
Absolutely.

Senate Eskrigde (04:13)
I’m going to dive more into that a little later. What I mean by uncorrelated and diversification. But my background, know, really I was born, born and raised in Twin Falls, Idaho, which is halfway for those of you don’t know where Twin Falls is. It’s halfway between Boise this way and Salt Lake City that way. Right. So like almost exactly halfway in the middle. I love Idaho. It’s a phenomenal place to live. You know, everybody that’s around Idaho says, don’t tell anybody, but no.

And you’re welcome. Come on. We love Idaho. We got plenty of room. We love it here. My origin story, you know, I’m the guy that was an entrepreneur from early, early stages in my life. Like we’re talking about selling things in grade school, right? And when I was growing up, I always knew that I wanted to own real estate. Always. I knew that the rich people made their money in real estate. And, you know, I did a lot of things as an entrepreneur. I tried everything from selling duct tape.

to selling peepholes door to door. know, like literally I’ve done it all, but my biggest career was a financial advisor, right? Helping people with stocks, bonds, mutual funds, lots and lots of life insurance, which by the way, I’m a huge believer in life insurance and infinite banking. That’s not a good topic for topic for this chat, but we can talk more about that in the future. But all of my money, I was helping people invest in stocks and bonds and all of my money was going in real estate.

I did single family from 2009 to 2019, somewhere in that range, fix and flips, BRRRRs, you name it in the single family space, I did it. But in 2019, I discovered multifamily and I stopped looking at single family like instantly and moved everything into multifamily. And then I discovered syndication. And then when I realized the funds of fund model, which is what I do now, okay? I’m an expert by the way, in multifamily real estate.

I have bought all like 30 buildings and I have helped raise capital for another another 20 buildings and I’ve helped 100 students buy their first deal in multifamily. But I don’t believe that we should be 100 % focused in one asset class. And when I discovered the fund to fund model, now I can bring you multifamily. I can bring you mobile home parks. I can bring you marinas. I’ve even done some more speculative things like businesses.

We bought eight paving companies around the Phoenix Metro last year. We bought 240 oil wells. We even bought a bourbon distillery. So because I do the fund to fund model now, I can bring you out multiple different assets in all sorts of different genres or asset classes, whatever word you want to use.

Quentin (06:53)
Yeah, yeah, man. Senate, thank you, man. Thank you for walking us through the journey, giving us a little bit more about your background. As you was talking, man, I was like, write your resume. I was actively listening to just the journey you’ve been on in. Born and raised in Twin Falls, Idaho.

not afraid to tell people about it. Please for not gatekeeping and keeping it to yourself. Appreciate that. Appreciate that, Entrepreneurial spirit, just since she was younger. Loved the financial advising. Talked about insurance. You talked about the infinite options. I have had people on talking about these things. So I feel you on that. You say it’s not the place, sometimes we weave different things in for sure. But I love how you described it. Multifamily. Senate, you’re an expert in multifamily. Love that. Found syndication, but then landed on the

fun to fun model. I intentionally reiterate these things to you. You just said it. I reiterate it back to you because I have this say in Senate that destiny has no wasted moments, right? Meaning no matter what we’ve been through in life, every stop of the way we have bought from to refine the person that we are today, to refine our mindset, our passions, our missions, our why. So Senate, I would love to know.

What has these moments in this journey of your life taught you about yourself? Has it taught you discipline, resilience, to have to be more innovative? Like what has these moments taught you about yourself?

Senate Eskrigde (08:21)
You know the biggest lesson that I’ve learned about myself recently and all the people who knew me were like, duh, you know, have you ever had one of those moments like, but it hit me that I’m a servant. I like to help people. I actually have a little bit of a hero complex, right? I like to save people like that. I like to help, right? I’m the guy that holds the door at the grocery store. Why? Not because it helps the other person out because it makes me feel good. And so you know when I had this realization a couple years ago and that’s the

Quentin (08:30)
Yes!

Senate Eskrigde (08:50)
That’s what I, why, when I pivoted to the funds of funds is because the whole point of the funds of fund model is to help other people invest and to get their money where it needs to be. So it’s just a perfect fit for me because I’m that servant person to help people and serve them into getting into funds of funds.

Quentin (09:58)
I strongly believe that. Now, you know, we’re not, not getting into religion at all, but I do read the Bible, right? And it has this proverb, it’s proverbs. believe it’s 1125, so chapter 1125, it says, when you refresh others, you in return will be refreshed. And I just think that’s just a,

The stand is dope. I mean, come on. And I think that perfectly describes a servant’s heart because they know if I refresh and help others, I’m going to be refreshed, whether it’s financially, whether it’s mentally. Like it’s that so in reap kind of mentality. But how about throw out there like a boomerang? You got to come back to Does that make sense, man? Yeah. Yeah.

Senate Eskrigde (10:41)
Love it.

It does. Yeah, I’m with you right there with you, right? The more good things you put out in the world, the more you get back. I’m a huge believer. I don’t care what you call it, right? You call it karma. You call it universe. Call it God. Call it vibration. But regardless, I don’t care what you call it. When you do good things for people, you get good things in return. And maybe you don’t get it directly, right? Like if I hold the door for you, you’re not going to give me a tip.

But you know, I know that the whatever you want to call it karma is going to pay me back tenfold later on.

Quentin (11:12)
So quick story, because I know this is about you, but quick story, ⁓

to put the hammer on the head of what you just said. My wife and I, we was at Ikea this weekend, walking around Big Ikea, lost a bracelet that my dad gave me. I realized it when we was about to walk out the door. So my wife says, baby, you want to walk around and see if we find it? Now instantly, I was like, I started being a pessimist. And I was like, no, it’s Big Ikea. Somebody found it. And my wife gave me that look. She said, babe.

You want to walk around and look for it? It was almost like she was like, let’s do this. And I said, you know what? Let’s do it. So we started walking and something told me to record. So I actually record our process. And I was like, listen, same thing I said to you. I was saying to the recording, look for my bracelet. I said it on the recording. I believe I’ve put, I’m about to get emotional, man. I said, I believe I put enough good karma out there. I’ve turned things into lost and found. I went out my way to make sure people got their stuff back.

I just believe enough good karma that we’re going to find this. I’m recording this in it. We’re walking around. We’re looking. This guy out of nowhere says, hey, are you looking for something? I said, yeah. I said, I’m looking for my bracelet. He says, is it gold and black? I said, yes. He said, I seen it sitting somewhere a little ways back. He starts walking with us. our kid, we have to walk up steps. I mean, we walking.

corner, corner, he’s like, seen it. It was back here. Sent it. We walked up to this desk and he’s like, here you go right there. The bracelet is just sitting there on the desk where anybody can see it and take it. And cause it’s like in a pathway where everybody’s walking, the thing’s sitting there. I just wanted to drive home to your point. You put enough good out there, good will come back to you. We can call it whatever we want, but that’s, I just believe it’s a principle, right? And so I love it, man. I love it. Let me ask you.

What is the next real goal with your business? What are you looking to solve a scale next in it?

Senate Eskrigde (13:13)
Yeah, so we’re working on revamping all of our systems and processes so we can serve more people, right? Our average investor invests $83,000 with us on average, right? Some are small, some are big, whatever, but it’s $83,000 per investment. And they’re investing on average of three times a year per investor. And my goal is to help 250 people do that exact thing this year.

Right? And, your transparency, I’m not, I’m not able to do that right now. so I’ve got to work on my systems, right? I’ve got to, I’ve got to build my systems up to where I can do 250 in a year. And so that’s what I’m really working on right now. And I’m super excited to do it.

Quentin (13:48)
Got you.

Now, I believe you’re going to do it. I believe you had a servant’s heart. I believe

you are not just a self-confident person, but a self-aware person. So a self-confident person, they know who they are and they will bulldoze everybody because they know who they are. Like, this is what I do. And I will just bulldoze over everybody. But a self-aware person, they know who they are, but they do it in compliment of everybody around them. And I just believe that you are a self-aware person, man. Just the way you talking.

And that vulnerability is literally, it’s a war term. Like when you’re vulnerable, you’re telling somebody where to attack you. You’re saying like, this is where I’m open to attack. So vulnerability is something, is a process that has to be walked up to. And everybody can do it. And everybody necessarily shouldn’t do it based on past or whatever. But if you do learn to do it, it becomes a superpower because you’re telling people, you can’t hurt me here. I know who I am. I know my self-awareness.

I know where I need to improve and I know where I’m strong and I will work on both at the same time. And so now I feel you, man. Keep doing what you’re doing, bro. Keep doing what you’re doing, Absolutely. I want to hear, I want to say this word and I want to hear your perspective on it. The word relationship. Senate, when you hear that word, what comes to mind when you hear relationship?

Senate Eskrigde (15:04)
Thank you. Thank you. Thank

You know, I would say relationship is one of the most important words in the English dictionary because, you know, human beings are not meant to be alone and we need other people in our lives to help us become who we want to be. You know you talked about the Bible earlier. We go back to there. There’s several passages in the Bible, things like iron sharpens iron, therefore man sharpens man, right? We need other people in our lives. And to me,

I believe truly if you wanna take this back to business, I’m in the relationship business. You know, I tell my investors all the time, my worst nightmare is for you to invest with me one time and never invest again. I wanna build a relationship with you where you want to invest with me multiple times over the next several years because we’re gonna have such a good tight relationship. You’re gonna get brought into the fold of my family and you’re gonna get be in my flock.

Quentin (16:38)
Relationships is all about building a community, right? And I believe healing happens in community. Like I believe that when you have people around you that can support you, because healing just means to be made whole, right? And so when you start to have a support system around you, relationships around you of common unity, that’s what community is, common unity, people start to support you financially with resources, which clears up your mental space.

would in turn would affect your physical health because now you’re not in stress. You’re not, no more anxiety. And so I just believe that relationships build community and community builds an ecosystem of healing where everybody thrives. And so what you just said, sir, I mean, so eloquent, man. So, so eloquent. ⁓ I want to try this. I would love to know, is there a topic that I have not brought up that you would like to talk about?

whether it be motivational, educational, inspirational, because if there’s something that you came in thinking about, I want to make sure our listeners get that. So I just want to open up the floor. Is there, if there’s something that you want to talk about that I have not brought up.

Senate Eskrigde (17:46)
You know, I wasn’t going to bring this up at all until you just said that. And I just think it flows so good with the conversation. Right. So one other thing that people need to know about me, right, is I love personal development and education. And so because of that, my wife and I actually run two conferences that people can attend. Right. So we have a motivational inspirational conference that is not real estate or any industry related. It’s called the Idaho Summit.

It’s a personal development conference that we host right here in our hometown called Twin in Twin Falls, Idaho. And this year, Ed Mylet is our keynote speaker. I mean, this thing’s in two weeks. I don’t know exactly when this is going to air. This event may have already passed, right? But we do it every year. It’s called the Idaho Summit. And it’s just a way for us to give back to our community. I mean, we do charge for the ticket, but it’s pretty low. We don’t make any money on it. And then in October every year, we do a real estate conference.

educational only, no pitches. It’s just how to become the best real estate investor you can be. And there’s multiple different tracks and avenues. We call that Idaho REIcon, and that’s in Boise, Idaho every October. So we host the Idaho Summit in Twin Falls, Idaho every April. And you can find that at the IdahoSummit.com. We also host Idaho REIcon, a real estate investor conference.

We do every October in Boise, Idaho. Either way you Google either one of those things and you can, you’ll be able to find it probably pretty easy. The Idaho summit.com or Idaho re icon.com. And the reason we do it is just to give back, just to teach and provide education to everybody because education is one of the most important things. As a fund to fund manager, I focus a lot on educating my people because as I mentioned,

I bring out diversified asset classes and sometimes we’re talking about unique things. A lot of the people that have worked with me are only used to investing in say apartments and multifamily, but maybe we’re looking at a marina deal, right? So boats on the water. And so they need to really understand what the difference is in these different types of asset classes so they can make an educated and informed decision. So education is something that’s very, important to me.

The last piece I want to mention to your point earlier,

about diversification being so, so important, right? And I really wanna make sure that people understand what diversification really means. And the most important aspect in my opinion of diversification is correlation. So there’s a great quote by Ray Dalio, one of the biggest hedge fund managers in the world that says, the holy grail of investing is to have 10 to 12 truly

uncorrelated assets in your portfolio.

Tony Robbins, one of the greatest motivational speakers, wrote an entire book based on that quote. And it’s called the Holy Grail of investing. And it’s all about finding non-correlated assets. I keep using this term correlation. What does it mean? Well, if you invest in the stock market, stocks and bonds, the S &P 500, and you go and look at the actual components in the S &P 500, you’re gonna see that Google

is one of the biggest components of the S &P 500. And I’m not gonna give you exact math here because it’s complicated formulas, but let’s just say if Google is 10 % of the S &P 500 or it’s S &P is correlated at 10 % to them and Google drops 30%, just simple math, right? The S &P 500 will also drop 3 % if nothing else changes. Does that make sense?

And again, it’s not exact math here, friends. It’s not supposed to be exact math, but it’s to teach you the concept that if you own the S &P 500 and Google drops really fast, your investments are gonna drop too. So you’re much better off finding things that are not correlated together. What that means is they don’t move at the same time, right? So what I do is I help people invest into four different categories of private equities. And I believe that they should break out kinda like this.

It’s again, we’re gonna add the math’s gonna add up wrong. So those of you that are paying attention, hope you catch it, right? 25 % of your investments should go into debt funds, in my opinion. These are things that are gonna pay you kind of like a CD, right? Every month, you’re gonna get a dividend every month, anywhere from 12 to 16 % interest is what you should be seeing on these things. So at 12%, you get 1 % every month to you. Pretty cool, right? Anyway, the next bucket, the biggest bucket in this pie,

is what I call core equity investments. These are things like apartment buildings, mobile home parks, RV parks, buildings you can walk up and touch and put your hand on, okay? These should pay you about 20%, average annual return, AAR, so that includes some cashflow and a big pop at the end when it sells, okay? But then another 25 % of your money, right, should go into what I call more speculative investments.

So last year we bought eight paving companies in Arizona. We bought 240 oil wells in South Dakota and Wyoming. I’m currently working on building a bourbon distillery. These are operating businesses, things that are going to give you a much, much larger return, but there are some risks and some things like that, right? But you should be getting about 40 % return on those. And then the last category, the ultra wealthy people like,

We’re talking like Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Donald Trump, these guys that are like billionaires, they put one to 3 % of their net worth into venture capital, like startup, startup businesses, like putting money into Microsoft before Microsoft was a thing, putting money into Google before Google was a thing. Now, you guys, one to 3 % of your net worth might not sound like a whole lot, but if you put some money in there,

you’re gonna make a ton of money on these things. You’re gonna make a killing on them. Only one out of 10 are gonna be successful, but that one out of 10 is gonna give you like a 50X return. And so I can help you get access to these kinds of investments as well.

Quentin (24:59)
My friend, you are stellar. I greatly appreciate you, sir. Listen, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn mobile about what you’re doing, how can they get in contact with you?

Senate Eskrigde (25:11)
You know, I’m pretty easy to find. If you Google Senate Eskridge, I’m on all social media platforms, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram. My website is just senateeskridge.com but the best place and the easiest one to remember is meetsenate.com. It’s a little short list you can download. I’ve got a free passive investor course on there. It’s a seven day email thing you get. You can even book a call with me right there on that website. Download my contact information in there.

Quentin (25:37)
me say three things to you sincerely. Well, I’m going say four things to you actually. I know I’m going say three. I’m going say four to you. One, thank you for your professionalism. Appreciate that. didn’t know it to you. Secondly, thank you for your time. Could have been anywhere else in the world, but you gave us your time. Thank you so much. Thank you for your story, for your gift of transparency, for your gift, what I believe your gift of vulnerability.

I believe stories serve a premium. People lives change because of the stories that other people tell, the narratives that other people tell. So thank you so much for your story. Lastly, thank you for your perspective, your mindset, everything you’ve done to build the mind that you have now. Thank you for your mindset and bringing that mindset to this platform. Senate, I greatly appreciate you,

Senate Eskrigde (26:26)
You’re welcome. Thanks for having me. It was a lot of fun.

Quentin (26:28)
Absolutely. Well, listen, y’all heard Senate look into the show notes, get in contact with him, check him out. You will be doing yourself a great service if you did. And definitely make sure you subscribe here. That way we can continue to be access to you, alert you and let you know when we continue to bring up amazing people just like Senate. So sir, I say thank you again and everyone else listen, y’all have a fantastic day.

Senate Eskrigde (26:52)
Bye everybody.