What if life’s most difficult moments were actually doorways to your purpose?
In this inspiring episode of the Exit Strategies Radio Show, host Corwyn J. Melette welcomes Lima MacLean—real estate investor, author, speaker, and founder of the Elite Real Estate Investing Academy. Lima opens up about the journey that began with one of the hardest seasons of her life: her son’s emergency brain surgery. That life-altering event led her to question everything—including her career as a teacher—and propelled her toward building a new future through real estate.
Lima reveals how she transitioned from full-time educator to first-time investor, buying her very first property within months of leaving her job. Today, she’s a passionate advocate for legacy-building and generational wealth, having gifted her own children real estate properties for their birthdays. She now teaches others how to do the same through her coaching programs, online courses, and powerful community events.
Lima also shares the story behind her Amazon bestselling book, Rebirth: Stories of Unyielding Courage—a compilation of testimonies from more than 100 contributors—and the global summit that grew from it. Her message is clear: your story matters, and you have the power to build wealth, purpose, and healing at the same time.
Key Takeaways:
- (02:12) How her son’s brain surgery became the catalyst for life change
- (05:33) Quitting her teaching job and jumping into real estate full time
- (07:12) Her first real estate deal—and the many that followed
- (09:55) Gifting her children real estate to create generational wealth
- (12:45) Launching the Elite Real Estate Investing Academy to empower others
- (18:29) Redefining legacy: It’s not just about money
- (22:08) The birth of Rebirth: Stories of Unyielding Courage
- (24:13) How to grab the book for $0.99 and join the global Rebirth movement
🎁 Bonus: Get Lima’s new book Rebirth: Stories of Unyielding Courage for just $0.99 on Amazon (limited time) and find out how to receive a signed paperback at 50% off!
👉 Grab the book here: https://www.rebirthinternationalbook.com/
Disclaimer:
In the state of South Carolina, individuals engaging in real estate investing activities such as wholesaling, brokering deals, or representing others in the purchase or sale of real property may be required to hold an active real estate license.
Resources and Links:
- 📘 Rebirth: Stories of Unyielding Courage – Available on Amazon for $0.99
- 🌐 www.rebirthinternationalbook.com
- 🌐 www.jnaconsultservices.com
- 🌐 www.elitespeakerssociety.com
Connect with Lima:
- Website: www.elitespeakerssociety.com
Connect with Corwyn:
- Contact Number: 843-619-3005
Shoutout to our Sponsor: ROBYN COLLINS
Do you want something more? More Meaningful Moments opportunities, deeper relationships and memorable experiences? Do you want to make a difference? If you say YES, a career and real estate could be the opportunity you’re looking for guiding people to one of the most important decisions they ever made, the purchase or sale of their home can be both rewarding and lucrative.
Exit Realty has a revolutionary compensation model training and technology that provides you with the tools you need to start and build your successful real estate career. Call me today ROBYN COLLINS with REDROBYN HOMES at 843-557-5003. Again that’s 843-557-5003 or visit RedRobynhomes.com/join.exit and make your Exit today.
Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/corwyn-j-melette/support
ROBYN:
Do you want something more? More meaningful moments, opportunities, deeper relationships, and memorable experiences? Do you want to make a difference? If you said yes, a career in real estate could be the opportunity you’re looking for. Guiding people through one of the most important decisions they ever made, the purchase or sale of their home can be both rewarding and lucrative. Exit Realty’s revolutionary compensation model, training, and technology that provides you with the tools you need to start and build your successful real estate career. Call me today, Robyn Collins, R – O – B – Y – N Collins with Red Robin Homes at 843-557-5003. Again, that’s 843-557-5003 or visit us at redrobinhomes.com/joinexit and make your exit today
CORWYN:
Good morning, good morning, good morning, guys, and welcome to another fabulous episode of Exit Strategies Radio Show. Hey, I am your host, Corwyn J. Melette, broker and owner of Exit Realty Low Country Group in beautiful North Charleston, South Carolina. Hey, if this is your first time listening to this show, maybe you’re passing through, maybe you caught us on the dial, on the radio, guys, hold tight. Do not lose that state. Here at this show, our mission is very simple. That is to empower our community to find our full seats in real estate education, guys. We are legacy building. That’s what we do. That’s the hashtag that we promote, that we tell you to make sure that you got on all those things that you’re doing to change the world, not only for you, but for your generations yet to come. I always got to give a shout out to those who listen to us faithfully. Pastor Vanderbilt Evans, Sr. I’ll put that Sr. in Jacksonville. Y’all be surprised. I do strong to be about 80 years old. Look here, and his beautiful wife, Elder Evans. Thank you guys for tuning in. For those who listen, again, from Hollywood, what you know no good, all the way up to Monkey’s Corner. Y’all know my mama live out there, y’all. I love you. I love you. I love you. Up there in the Muddy Mullins, the M&M Mullins. Guys, thank y’all so much for tuning in. We appreciate you, and we’re super excited to have you along on this ride. Now, you know that we be climbing these mountains, that we be traversing these valleys, and yet and still, we be turning over every rock, every nook, every cranny to find the best guests to bring on this show for you. Now, look here. Today, we have managed to find some good people here to be on this show with us today. So, I ain’t going to steal her thunder, but what I’m going to tell you is that she is an overall, all-around, down-to-earth, great people who, and good people, and great people, you know what they do? They pour into others. So, she is the founder of the Rebirth Movement. I love that. We got to start this thing over. We got to go. I love it. Renowned, best-selling author, none other than Miss Lima McLean. How are you doing, Lima? I’m doing great, thank you. Thank you for having me. You’re more than welcome. Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to be here. So, you kind of got a little snippet of the drill, you know, what we like to do because we want to tell the story, but we don’t want the story. Matter of fact, I’m going to share something with you, if you don’t mind, real quick. I’ll lead in. For our listeners, this is for you, almost certainly as well, guys, but information without action is entertainment. So, we don’t want our show just merely to be entertainment. We want this to be empowerment for you. So, Lima, if you don’t mind, give our listeners that high view of who you are and what it is you do, and let’s break this thing down today.
LIMA:
Yes. So, first and foremost, I am a real estate investor, and I’ve been investing in real estate for a very long time. It started out of a hardship for me, actually. I was a school teacher. My son was in the hospital having brain surgery after brain surgery, and I was just praying, asking God, what is it that I could do because the Board of Education was threatening my job, and I was just like, oh, my goodness. I knew my son was going to need special care. I said, I need to have money, and I need to be at home with him, too, so that he can get better, and I kept praying, and I kept seeking God, and I started seeing real estate everywhere, real estate investing, and so I decided to hire a mentor, and I closed my first deal. I was supposed to make $5,000 when I started. I missed the deal up, and I made $2,400, but I knew at that moment, I said, oh, my goodness, this is really awesome. It’s really true. It works. So, I went to the Board of Education. I quit my job, and I just put my head down from there, and I’ve been investing in real estate ever since then. It’s amazing to me, and so I also host real estate conferences, workshops, events in person and virtual, and I host lots of events, actually, outside of real estate investing. I help business owners to strategize events for their business, and I work with speakers from all over the globe because we need speakers for these events, so we do a lot of events every single year, and so I help speakers from everywhere to travel to the United States to speak. Speakers from the United States travel in other countries, so we do a lot of that, and our speakers, they get a lot of exposure, media exposure, major television publications. The Rebirth, it came out of events, a lot of events that I do, and it was a mission that God gave me to bring hope and healing around the globe, and it’s a book with co-authors telling their stories of rebirth where they went through a dark time. They went through that turning point, and now they’re transformed, and they’re using their lives to help others all over the globe, so the authors are from everywhere all over the globe, so that’s, yeah, the Rebirth movement.
CORWYN:
So, that is awesome. So, for our listeners, guys, I’m gonna sprinkle something in here, Lima, that you ain’t said. So, for those of us from good old South Kakalakke, Lima, our homegirl, we’re waiting for you. Lima, we’re waiting for your bread. All right, so I got to get that out because sometimes people got to be able to relate. Sometimes they look, and they say you were way off, and you’re down the road, but they got to understand that you came right from and right through, and sometimes, oh, okay, okay, you came from and came through here, then, okay, if you could do it, I could do it. So, Lima, if you don’t, so that first deal, I’m over here chuckling to myself because you messed it up, but you still made money. Exactly, exactly. So, if you don’t mind, give us some of the construct of it. Was it single family? What was it? And then, obviously, because you messed it up, and I say you messed it up, I ain’t gonna say because you obviously didn’t jack it up on a misstep or what have you, but if you don’t mind sharing that, let’s talk about that.
LIMA:
It’s funny because it’s just like what you said from the I hired a mentor, just learning everything. I was afraid, but I knew I had to do it. I had to do it for myself. I had to do it for my son. I had to do it. So, I said, you know what? Let me just do it, and it was my first deal. So, actually, it was a deal across the street from my parent’s house. It was on the market listed with a real estate agent, and back then, $5,000 was a really good deal. It was actually a wholesale deal, and so I contacted that agent. I told the agent that I was a seasoned investor, and I wanted the property. I talked them down as far as the earnest money deposit, and I found a buyer. Back then, I was running ads in the newspaper, so I ran an ad in the newspaper. I got a buyer for the property, and we met at the library, the local library. He gave me the check, and we went from there, and when I say I messed the deal up, the comparables, everything, it was a mess, but I still went through with it. I tried to clean it up as much as I could, but the buyer really wanted that property, and so that saved everything. So, when I met with him to get the check, he’s like, minus everything else that you didn’t look at properly, here’s the $22,400. I’m like, okay, I’ll take it. That’s what happened with me. It was the beginning of me really learning how to evaluate deals properly, so it was a single family home across the street from my parent’s house at that time. I closed on that deal, and it was freedom from there, so liberating, and I remember walking into the school and telling them that I quit. Just walked out of there with my stuff, packed up my stuff, and left, and that was it. It was awesome. CORWYN: I know that’s right. Went in there with a bomb.
LIMA:
Yes.
CORWYN:
Exactly. So, quick disclaimer for those listening in the state of South Carolina. Wholesaling in South Carolina without a real estate license is an illegal practice. I’ve disclosed that, and that’s a disclaimer that we always give on this show. Guys, if you’re in the state of South Carolina, you want to look at, if you will, wholesaling a deal. That is an action per license law in South Carolina that requires a real estate license, so make sure you do that. Check in with somebody to make sure, verify, and make sure you’re on the right side of what you need to be doing. So, Lima, you’re a strategist. That’s what you do. You have a goal in mind and potential obstacles and hurdles, and what you do is you map out a course to navigate through those to come out on the other side basically unscathed, if you will. One of the things that you have strategized and figured out how to do is how to buy real estate with no money, no credit, no mortgage. Look here. I’m tickled because I can’t wait for you to tell us this because I know there’s some people right now that say, wait a minute, no what, no what, and no what? Oh, shoot. I bet there’s somebody on the side of interstate right now talking. Lima, tell us. Let’s talk about it. How in the ham sandwich would you do that?
LIMA:
There’s several ways, and I also have a real estate mentorship program, and I teach these strategies in my real estate program. One of the ways is I do a lot of deals of owner financing, owner financing strategies, and one of my favorites is subject to existing financing. I do a slew of subject to existing financing deals all the time, so that’s one of my favorite strategies. Every week, we’re closing deals, owner financing deals. Those deals I get, I take over the payments, the deed is signed over to me, and then so now I own the property. I’ve been doing this for years, and so now a lot of my properties I started out as a landlord, and now I’ve converted a lot of them over to short-term, mid-term rentals, so the cash flow is much greater with short-term, mid-term rentals, and I don’t have to have that concern with the landlord-tenant stuff that I used to do. That’s what I do. That’s one of the ways that I get properties without any of my own money, any credit, any mortgage, is through subject to existing financing, which is one side of owner financing.
CORWYN:
So you spoke, made mention of you have a mentoring program. Our listeners, the disclaimer, and what it is you just heard as we lead into what you should do is, guys, look, I’m fairly positive that the people on this, listening to this show, now if you’re a surgeon, that’s something different, but I’m pretty positive that you ain’t going to crack open your knee, your hip, or your hip for surgery merely by listening to a podcast, so what I’m saying to y’all is, just because you heard that here, you got that little snippet, don’t you? Be out there busting your head open, your knee, talking about, oh, I’m about to fix this joint. This hip been bothering me. I’m going to do a hip replacement right here in the house. I don’t want you to do that. You need to plug in. So let’s talk about, because look at you, you encouraged me, you laugh now, but let’s talk about this mentoring program. First of all, what is it called, and what kind of strategies and what kind of things, if you don’t mind, that you guys talk about in that?
LIMA:
Yes. I primarily have a basic foundation with wholesaling, subject to existing financing, and lease with the option to buy. And I have that foundation in place because I know a lot of investors, they do focus on using just one strategy, the BRR, the wholesaling only. I don’t do that. I use other strategies, but in my elite real estate investing academy, we focus on those because when we’re talking to sellers, we can help them one way or another with those strategies in place. So we’re able to offer them something because the sellers that we talk to really usually have an issue and they want to move and they want to move really bad. We do have some that maybe their house has just been sitting there for a while and they really want to sell, but they just haven’t yet. But most of the deals that we have, they really want to sell. So we’re able to deliver one way or another. If it’s a wholesale deal, if we’re taking over the payments or we’re leasing the property from them, and then we put someone else in there and then we have them later on buy the property. Or I take over the property and I use it short-term, mid-term rentals. And a lot of times too, what I teach is if someone is just adamant, we will just rent the property and then we’ll use it as short-term, mid-term rental as well. I teach every single detail of using those strategies. So no matter what, when you encounter a seller, you can help that seller because that’s what real estate investing is to me. We’re helping people and people are really happy when we have a solution for them. So I don’t really just focus on one way. I focus on all of that. So all of the investors have a good foundation where they can go out and help sellers. In the academy, I also teach asset protection, which is very important. A lot of people are trying to sue. So we go over asset protection, how to properly set up your company and how to put your properties in a trust because that’s very important. We also go over a lot of other things like business credit, which is really awesome. It’s always a tool to have under your belt and so many other things, taxes and all of that. It’s a no-brainer if you’re really serious about real estate investing and changing your life. Literally going
through my session, you can go from where you are to millions in real estate easily. So we have everything set up. I have a whole team of virtual assistants doing acquisitions and transition dispositions. I have transaction coordinators. So we have a whole framework set up for everyone to win. You don’t have to get burned out. You don’t have to try to figure it out on your own. We have everything set up for you. This is how I run my real estate business myself. We show you how to run your real estate business.
CORWYN:
So basically what I just heard you say is, hey, we’re going to educate you. We’re going to teach you how to do this and give you a broad view. You’ll have diversity, if you will, in the methods and the strategies that you’ll be familiar with and know how to do. But then outside of that, we’re going to bring you parallel with us because we have an engine that’s already running. So I’m going to say this, and this is for our listeners. I want y’all to think about this thing hit me a few days ago. I was thinking that you typically don’t see people jump their car, their battery’s dead a week or whatever, going to start a car. You don’t see people jump their battery from, definitely not from a dead battery, but you don’t see them jump their vehicle from an engine, a car that’s not running. So what I just heard is, hey, look, we’re going to bring you an alignment with us. You’re just going to get close enough. We’re going to hook the cables to you. We’re going to get your junk. Then we all going to get on down the road is what I heard. I love that. That is awesome that you guys have a platform in order to be able to share this type of information and do these types of things. Now, real estate allows you to really generational wealth. Talk about legacy, a tremendous amount on this show, because everything that we pour in to people from this platform at this table, everything that we give them, whether it be food, whether it be drink, whatever it is, we mean that for their good, for their nourishment, so that they can have the strength to go out and do the work. You may mention the guy. So I’m going to share this brief. It’s been in my script for the last few weeks. Nehemiah, I think it’s 466, but for the people and you’re out here doing the work. Nehemiah, you’re out here putting in, investing the work and giving people the work that God has given you. So they in turn can take that and go do what God has called them to do. As we talk about generational wealth and building wealth, or just merely legacy, if we take the wealth piece off of it, because legacy has its own value, right? Yes. As we talk about that, if you could articulate what that means to you and then take that a step further and how what you’re doing now and teaching others to do, how is it empowering them to be able to do the same?
LIMA:
Yeah, legacy is very important and that’s something that God laid on my heart. I had no idea I was going to be doing this. Now with the Elite Real Estate Investing Academy, I work with students from all over the globe. They’re taking my sessions because real estate investing is global. Even with my children, I always encourage my students or anyone that’s thinking about going into real estate investing, it’s not just about you, it’s about legacy. It’s about what are you going to leave here? What type of inheritance? For my children, I always encourage everyone. I started out as a real estate investor with my children, raising my children as a single mom, as a divorced mom, real estate investing, giving them a property for their birthday. When I’m talking about legacy, that’s important and that’s what you want to take this opportunity to do is to create that legacy. It’s important to me, it’s important to God, and I really encourage others because it’s not just about you, we’re here. It’s a bigger picture. God has a bigger mission for us. That’s what I really tell my students and that’s what I teach them. It’s not just about them, it’s about legacy.
CORWYN:
Simon Sonic wrote this book, Start With Why, and tells the story. I’m pretty positive that you’ve read it. The why of the thing. The why will carry you when everything else fails, when the who, what, how, and everything else in between is gone. That why will carry you, it will keep you encouraged. You started off with, and there’s so many stories, Lima. I know you probably have heard a tremendous amount of them as well, that they start off like yours. Something happens, you got children, single parent, and you got to make a way. There’s some people that just, they shrink back from it. There’s some people that say, all right, God, look here, I got to go. I got to run. I got to jump. I got to do whatever. I need for you to give me some wind as I stretch out these arms so we can fly or whatever. That’s what you did and you ran with it. Kudos to you for that because again, there’s so many people that would shrink away or otherwise fall back and not do anything close to what you’ve done. Again, kudos and congratulations to you for answering the call, but most importantly, for having faced the faith during the journey. The rebirth story, that comes from this, correct?
LIMA:
Yes.
CORWYN:
Tie that in for us. What is that? What does that look like? How do we get here? If that makes sense.
LIMA:
Yeah. With events, me hosting events, I’m always asking God, what does the audience need to hear? What is it that I need to put together? What’s going to make the biggest impact right now? I would just wait for God to tell me and then that’s the event that I would host at that time. Just through doing that too, I have developed signature events that we do every year, but this time it wasn’t an event. It was a book. At first, I thought it wasn’t God. I was like, okay, this is not God. I’m not doing this. I don’t want to hear it. I was like, I’ll just revisit it later. That note, it was just more and more intense. It was more and more intense. I knew I was like, wait a minute, this is God. I have to do it. It was the book bringing all these authors together from all over the globe. I’m just telling God, I’m like, I don’t know anyone that wants to write their chapter in the book and tell their story about their personal life and what they’ve gone through. I just put it out there online and I just started my online journey two years ago. I’m like, there was another issue. I put it out there and in less than 30 days, I had all the authors for the first book. When they saw the message, they all were like, this is for me. You’re talking to me. God lined every single author, every single one of them, men and women telling their stories. They are amazing people and they’re doing amazing things around the globe. That book just launched last month. Now, I’m literally working on volume two of that book. That’s what’s happening with that. We’re having a rebirth summit that’s taking place in June. It’s a virtual summit. It’s going to be really, we have over a hundred men and women telling their stories of rebirth. That’s how that came about. It came from the events and from everything that I’ve been doing before. You just never know where God is going to take you. I had no idea that this would be happening.
CORWYN:
Yeah, right there. Again, congratulations on the book. Let’s make sure we get the title right because we look right here. Hold on. Look, y’all felt like I said, right here. This is what we do.
LIMA:
We’re going to support. What’s the title of the book? It’s called Rebirth Stories of Unyielding Courage. Right now, you can literally go to Amazon and you can buy that book for 99 cents, the ebook. If you buy the book right now, it’s for a limited time for 99 cents. You can get 50% off the paperback book. All you have to do is reach out to me and then you’ll get 50% off and you’ll get a signed edition of the paperback book.
CORWYN:
Okay. I’m going to change up. I got the hook up. I love it.
LIMA:
Don’t forget if you go to Amazon, make sure to give us a review on the book. If you go there and buy it.
CORWYN:
Awesome. Lima, I want to make sure our listeners get how they can get in contact with you. Where can they reach? Obviously, we know where the book is, but we can go get that. Listeners, go get it. Where can people reach out to you at?
LIMA:
Yeah. Follow me on Facebook, Lima MacLean, L-I-M-A, last name, M-A-C-L-E-A-N. Follow me on Facebook and you can DM me there. You can also go to www.elitespeakerswithassociety.com. You can go there and you can, if you want to book a call with me, you can reach me there or you can go to www.jnaconsultservices.com and you can reach me there that those are sites. And then also the paperback book is at www.rebirthinternationalbook.com. So you should be able to reach me in one of those ways.
CORWYN:
Awesome. So Lima, I want to thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule that we quickly reached the end, if you will, of today’s show. But I want to thank you for taking time and being on with us today. It has been a pleasure to chat with you and giving me a number of things. You reinforced and confirmed some things for me today too. I appreciate that. You never know because that’s what you’ll get. You’ll give it to somebody you have no idea to say, all right, hold on. I need you to go on over there and put this nail in that thing right there and reconfirm for them. So I appreciate that today. But again, thank you so much for being on the show with us today. Thank you. So for our listeners, guys, y’all know this thing and those who knew, y’all going to get it. So look at it. You know what I’m going to do? You ready? Ready? We go. Guys, I love you. I love you. I love you. And we’re going to see you guys out there in those streets.
