Paige McLaughlin: From Concierge to Real Estate Maven and Cancer Survivor
Apr 18, 2024
Alimond Studio
When life handed Paige McLaughlin lemons, she didn't just make lemonade—she built a lemonade empire. Our latest episode rides alongside Paige, a concierge-turned-real-estate-maven with an awe-inspiring tale that begins in the polished halls of the Ritz-Carlton and unfolds into a remarkable two-decade journey. She lets us in on her childhood dreams of model homes that led her into the world of real estate, and how she climbed the ranks with the finesse of Ritz-Carlton service leading her way. Despite the shifting sands of the market, from interest rate hikes to supply-demand curveballs, Paige's approach to real estate is as steadfast as it is strategic, weaving personal connections with each key handover.
The heart of our conversation beats strongest when Paige peels back the curtain on her most formidable opponent yet—cancer. As a survivor, her story isn't just about the fight; it's a masterclass in optimism. She divulges how her gratitude, her relentless positivity, and the support from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society became her armor during her battle with lymphoma. Now, she's taking her indomitable spirit to new heights as a candidate for Visionary of the Year, translating personal trials into a crusade against blood cancers. Join us for a narrative that is as much about the resilience of the human spirit as it is about the intricacies of real estate.
When life handed Paige McLaughlin lemons, she didn't just make lemonade—she built a lemonade empire. Our latest episode rides alongside Paige, a concierge-turned-real-estate-maven with an awe-inspiring tale that begins in the polished halls of the Ritz-Carlton and unfolds into a remarkable two-decade journey. She lets us in on her childhood dreams of model homes that led her into the world of real estate, and how she climbed the ranks with the finesse of Ritz-Carlton service leading her way. Despite the shifting sands of the market, from interest rate hikes to supply-demand curveballs, Paige's approach to real estate is as steadfast as it is strategic, weaving personal connections with each key handover.
The heart of our conversation beats strongest when Paige peels back the curtain on her most formidable opponent yet—cancer. As a survivor, her story isn't just about the fight; it's a masterclass in optimism. She divulges how her gratitude, her relentless positivity, and the support from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society became her armor during her battle with lymphoma. Now, she's taking her indomitable spirit to new heights as a candidate for Visionary of the Year, translating personal trials into a crusade against blood cancers. Join us for a narrative that is as much about the resilience of the human spirit as it is about the intricacies of real estate.
Speaker 1:
I am Paige McLaughlin. I am with now Real Broker and I've been a realtor for 22 years. The way that I serve my clients is truly Ritz-Carlton service. Having been a concierge at the Ritz-Carlton in the past, that's really how I've approached my business for 22 years.
Speaker 2:
Wonderful. How did you get into real estate?
Speaker 1:
What's funny is I grew up on Long Island. Are we having a Thank you? Can you, is it okay? We can cut that out right? Sure, if not, it's okay. I grew up on Long Island, and in the area where I grew up on Long Island there was a community of new construction, and so there was a model home in this community called Port Jefferson, and I would go to that model home on a fairly regular basis because it was around the corner from my parents house, and so I was able to walk into that model home and just became enamored by the concept of the woman sitting downstairs being able to sell this amazing home. So it's always been a thing kind of in the back of my mind, and it wasn't until I was in retail that I was flipping through a magazine on a slow day, looking at man, I just I need to do this, and so that was a long time ago and I did it.
Speaker 2:
And here we are yeah, how did you do it? You started, you went and got your real estate license. Did you have a mentor? I did.
Speaker 1:
So I did get my real estate license. I did it in a fairly intense two-week program where it was early to late, lots of training and study groups I mean studying and study groups and we all ultimately took and passed the test. And then at that point I affiliated with a brokerage. That really was very traditional and so I'm really grateful for that from the time that I started. Very traditional in that I did, I had a mentor out of the gate and it was kind of a one-on-one situation and she was appropriately hands-off because I needed the autonomy at that point, so she was wonderful. So, yeah, I did have a mentor and she was appropriately hands-off because I needed the autonomy at that point. So she was, she was wonderful. So, yeah, I did have a mentor and she's somebody that, while she's out of the business at this point, she's really somebody that I still just, you know, I hold in high regard as getting me started and stay in touch with her.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, well, yeah, through people.
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
That's awesome, yeah. What challenges are you facing these days in the real estate market and how are you overcoming those challenges?
Speaker 1:
I think right now in real estate, because I've been in so long, I feel like we've it's all cyclical, of course, right. So I think I face the challenges a little bit differently than somebody who hasn't been in quite as long. There's been a lot of chicken. Little sky is falling, with the rates rising, and really I think for the bulk of the time that I've been in business, rates have been fairly low Not the whole time, but the fact that they were rising was something that we needed to learn how to readdress with our clients. But I think the challenge with the rising rates, it's normal, they're normal rates. Are they different rates? Sure, sure they are, but they're still normal. So learning that dialogue, learning that conversation was important. And you know, I think too, the conversation now between the supply and demand, that's something we learned in elementary school. Right, there just hasn't been the supply to date. So being able to explain to our buyer clients how best to write an offer, how best to win the offer, that's been, you know, it's a learning moment.
Speaker 2:
Yeah kind of reframing it. Yeah, exactly, exactly, I mean.
Speaker 1:
I feel like the reframing has to happen on a monthly basis. Yeah, I mean because things are always different, right?
Speaker 2:
Always changing.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:
What are you doing for marketing and advertising to bring your clients in so?
Speaker 1:
I really have been pretty organic for the bulk of my career and I'm pretty word of mouth. I'm very referral based at this point and I feel like, like we talked about in the beginning, the way that I approach my clients is very Ritz Carlton, Like I said, having been a concierge at the Ritz. It's just very customer service oriented and I think maybe the reason I worked at the Ritz and in that role is because I probably had been, you know, raised that way anyway. But providing that level of service to my clients has been amazing. So the way that I grow is really word of mouth. Most of what I've done over the course of the past years has been oh, I need to rebuy or sell with you because I've done it before. Or here's my daughter, sister, brother, cousin, best friend, friend from high school who now needs to do a real estate transaction, and you're the first person I thought of.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, that's a great way to bring people in yeah, yeah, it is.
Speaker 1:
I mean it saves marketing dollars. I'm kidding, I'm is I mean it saves marketing dollars. I'm kidding, I'm kidding. It costs other ways it does.
Speaker 2:
What do you find most rewarding about what you do?
Speaker 1:
I'll always say, the thing that I find most rewarding is the fact that I go to weddings, people are at my baby shower, or I've been at funerals, or I am a part of people's lives and they are part of mine. There's just been some very significant life events that have happened, both for me and for my clients, and it's just been an amazing relationship that gets built during the purchase or sale of somebody's biggest asset. You know it's more than just dollars.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely yeah. Speaking of life changes, you've had quite some life changes recently, right I have?
Speaker 1:
Would you like to talk about?
Speaker 2:
that I would love to talk about that.
Speaker 1:
You know, at the time that I was going through cancer, I was diagnosed with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma in June or July of 2021. And so at the time that that happened, it was a complete shock. I knew something was up, wasn't sure what, went to the doctor for a series of months, couldn't find anything. Down the wrong path Were you just feeling off.
Speaker 1:
I was having trouble swallowing, I had this pressure up here. I was having trouble swallowing and I knew that something was up, but I didn't know what, and so they were trying to tell me that it was something related to acid reflux. I'm like that's not it, that's not it. And I've always been a girl where it's like if the doctor tells me, let's be right, right, like I don't know, I don't know that stuff. So if a doctor says it, so I really.
Speaker 1:
That was a time I really started to learn self-advocacy and how important that is in your medical journey. But at that point I knew something was up, and so I just was frustrated with the lack of progress. We'd done a number of tests, everything's fine, everything's good. Now we're going to do this test, but we can't do it for a month and a half, and I found that I also had this lingering cough that was getting progressively worse. So I went to I'm an HMO. So I went to um, um, I'm an HMO, uh. So I went to their acute urgent care, which is kind of like an emergency room in Tyson's, and it was, um, like I'll never forget the date. I'll never forget exactly what went down, the conversations, the friendships made that day as a result of this like harrowing experience.
Speaker 1:
Um, I went in for this cough and they started doing imaging and the doctor came in and said hey, you're good. Like we just need to have the the radiologist review your stuff one more time, where just your blood work looks good, and we're just gonna let you go here in a minute, send you on your way, yeah, and so literally like four minutes later, he comes back in the room, closes the door behind him and he says um, so the radiologist identified something in your chest. It's, um, it's showing as a mass in your chest, and, um, heart drops right, and so we're going to need to do further imaging. And so they uh, took me in for a CT. Now there's a shift change. That doctor leaves. I never see him again and I'm waiting for the results. And you know how your results come to a portal now, prior to a doctor ever getting them to call you to discuss them. That happened, so they came in on my phone.
Speaker 2:
And are you by yourself? Yes, correct.
Speaker 1:
By myself. So I read these and the first thing I did was burst into tears and call my mom and say you need to get here and you need to get here quickly. My mom lives in Herndon. Of course, I was in Tyson's and so she dropped everything. I'm sure she did and, yeah, like a mama, she got there. She got there really quickly.
Speaker 1:
So, yeah, so I, you know, I've been very public with my cancer journey and I refer back to that day on a regular basis through my blog, through conversation and that kind of thing. And that was the day, like that was my own personal D-Day, that was the day my floor fell out. And yeah, so, hearing the word like there's something in there, we've consulted oncology, you know, like that was scary, that was scary. And there were a few weeks there where things were really, really scary and I won't say the scary ever went away. But once you have a plan, once they've formulated a treatment plan for you, that's when that's when you start to have the hope that I'm going to, I'm going to do it. Yeah, right, like let's just do this.
Speaker 2:
Let's face this.
Speaker 1:
There's no question that I'm not going to get to. I'll get to the other end. It's just I needed to know how to get there and that weird time. For like two weeks, from that initial like hey, there's a big thing in your chest size of a grapefruit weird to the point where they say here's how we're going to fix it. That was a scary time. And how long was your treatment through?
Speaker 1:
I went through about six months of chemo. My chemo consisted of three-week cycles. The first week, from Monday to Friday, I was 24 hours a day attached to a pump. I was in the center for the first day. On Monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday I was attached to a pump, and Fridays I would go back in again and I would finally be able to go to my son's football games and whatever without a big pump and chemo bag attached to me. And for the first few cycles I felt great. So, like the first three cycles or so, I was great. Cycles four, five, six really started to kick my butt and that's when all of the typical stuff set in. I'd lost my hair. We shaved it. My best friends and I shaved my hair as soon as the first cycle happened. Cycles two and three, everything fell out. I was yellow and bald and no brows, but anyway, I mean again, I embraced it. It was great to not have to style hair, yeah.
Speaker 2:
It was probably awesome, probably saved you 30 minutes in the morning At least. Yes, yeah, yeah, oh, wow, that was a lot to go through, and yeah, and now you're on the other side. How long have you been in remission?
Speaker 1:
So it depends on who you ask and when you ask them. Okay, because it's been like oh, yeah, oh, but maybe, and I mean there's been a lot of ancillary stuff too. So after all of the six months of chemo I went through, you know, 17 consecutive sessions of radiation, which you know the radiation just kind of came right down into where that tumor was. We knew that it was probably dead. We didn't know for sure. But I've had surgeries. I also had thyroid cancer. I had to have that removed. They punctured my lung in the process of one. I mean, it's just been a lot.
Speaker 1:
And like I said, I've been very public on social media about that, so it's been amazing for creating community. I call it cancer talk really, but at the same time creating community on social media, I've got people around the world, people who talk to me about I'm pregnant with my second child. My husband was just diagnosed with your cancer. I need your help. I'm scared to death.
Speaker 2:
So the ability to be able to reach out to people has been huge Because you don't really know as much as you say it or talk about it. You don't really know until you go through it yourself.
Speaker 1:
It's true, in so many different capacities.
Speaker 2:
Truly yeah, so they're probably grateful to have you as a resource to guide them through and say, hey, I've been there, I've done this, yeah, and with a very largely positive outlook even when things are not positive, without an artificial spin on things.
Speaker 1:
I think I probably just keep my head in a place where it naturally lands and a place where things are just generally very positive.
Speaker 2:
How has that positivity brought you to where you are today?
Speaker 1:
very positive. How has that positivity brought you to where you are today, man? I'm grateful for it because I interact with a lot of people on a regular basis who that might not come as naturally, for I think the positivity in my world, while it's not always there, like we had our moments during COVID, I've had my moments over the course of my life where it's been really hard to find the bright spots. But what I find, though, is that mindset's a thousand percent most important Out of everything in my world. It's my mindset, it's my gratitude, it's how do I approach things on a daily basis, and being able to kind of filter.
Speaker 1:
I mean, I find times where I'm so stressed out about certain stuff and I find myself sitting there counting my top five items of gratitude, and so that will help you when you're being grateful for stuff. You can't be negative about things, right Like you're just. You can't do both at the same time. There's no space for both, no, so I think that it helps keep me, I don't know, through my divorce, through challenges in my work, through my health issues, through raising children. I just think that it's been just great for me, great for my kids, great for my fiance, and just kind of just a great central focal point.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely. Tell me a little bit about what you're doing with the National Lymphoma Society, if I say that correctly.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. It's the biggest blood cancer organization that exists, so they deal a lot with policy and policy related to blood cancers, also in research and then also in patient support. So those are their three mission pillars. And when I was sick, Googling lymphoma, that's, of course, one of the first things that pops up. So, having been so active in social media, for me when I got there, the resources I needed initially were just message boards. Message boards and people who've been through it. But there was a large part of me that didn't want anything to do with knowing what other people did. I didn't want their story, I wanted my own story and I didn't want to know their challenges because then I would worry about them Did it just feel overwhelming.
Speaker 1:
It felt really overwhelming and so at that point I stepped back from message boards, I unsubscribed from them, coming to my email and I really focused on what were the other things that they were doing. And again, just a very positive spin on everything. And just here's the support that we provide what do you need Basically, what can we do for you? And they really were just so supportive and I began to realize that the research that is funded on a regular basis, I mean it's not just like, hey, we do research, it is, I mean, just such a machine to cure cancer. And in the time that I was sick, even Leukemia and Lymphoma Society did so much research that there were second and third line of defense treatments. You're treated, it goes away, it comes back again. You're now second line. So there were lines of defense that were moved up a line. There was so much research going on that, while you couldn't have gotten this amazing treatment until it came back a second time, now we're going to bring it back. It has been just amazing to watch, just in the time that I've been sick, the evolving process. So when I met a friend of mine, her name's Christine. Christine ran, for it was man and Woman of the Year at the time. They've now changed the name to Visionary of the Year. It is the largest fundraising campaign that Leukemia and Lymphoma Society has, and she asked for my support in 2022.
Speaker 1:
And I was still in the throes of my radiation and my treatment. It was a really hard time for me to be involved in such an intense situation, but that's where I fell in love with it at that point, with Christine Mills, with her campaign, and so Christine encouraged me and then later nominated me for 2024. So she invited me to the 2023 gala. I sat there at the front table on the anthem at the Wharf in DC, and I just fought with everything that I had, holding my fiance's hand, to not lose it. I was at the front table just conveniently, the closest, literally the closest to the stage, like where this wall is and it just was so compelling and emotional. And Stephanie Snepkowski, who ended up being the Visionary of the Year for 2023, is now my mentor, as now I'm running for Visionary of the Year for 2024.
Speaker 1:
Congratulations, thanks. I'm just man. It's my biggest platform I think I'll ever have. It is my biggest opportunity to make such a huge difference and impact the lives of people who are dealing with blood cancer after me. Stephanie Snapkowski was so dynamic and amazing, and her son also amazing. His name is Drew, he had leukemia and so she was doing this campaign to honor him and to continue to prevent any other children from developing blood cancers in the future. So she was incredible, is incredible and anyway, so that's why I chose to get involved with that, and so now I'm in the midst of a 10 week I mean in the throes of, not midst the throes of, not myths the throes of attendance man.
Speaker 1:
It started on March 28. And we end on June 8. And so within that timeframe, my team's goal and I've got about. You know, I've got about 20 on my team, probably about nine, who are engrossed in just what can I do? How can I help, and it's absolutely amazing. So our goal is $300,000 to raise for Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, with an intention of going far past that.
Speaker 1:
So yeah, I just figured that whatever money we do raise whether it's that full $300,000 or $700,000, we just don't know when a big gift is going to come in or when someone is going to feel moved and affected by blood cancers to donate the way that they are able to donate, yeah, do you have any big events coming up.
Speaker 2:
Fundraising events.
Speaker 1:
So yesterday we had what was called Action Day. That was a big push kind of toward the beginning of the campaign. We also have a number of events coming up, kind of smaller events, the campaign. We also have a number of events coming up, kind of smaller events, targeted events for specific groups along the way. Our big final gala is on June 8th. But the best way that I've had for people to get involved is to check out my story Because, again, until people know who I am or how I was affected or what blood cancer does, it's hard to really identify right Like anything like anything else. So my website goes directly to my Leukemia Lymphoma Society site and that's just thecurecollective2024.com. And thecurecollective2024.com is a way for people to go there's a couple of embedded videos to kind of learn a little bit more about me, about my story. People to go. There's a couple of embedded videos to kind of learn a little bit more about me, about my story, some pictures, some I mean, and truly the hope at the end of the tunnel you know Absolutely Well.
Speaker 2:
it's wonderful to see you today and make you look happy and healthy.
Speaker 1:
Thank you, I feel great. Thank you for coming in today. Yeah, thank you so much. Thank you no-transcript.