7 figure Attraction Agent

Lana Samuels: From Marty Fox's EA to Director - The Uncomfortable Growth Hacks

• Tom Panos - Real Estate Coach & Trainer

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Ever wanted to quit within your first 6-months of real estate? Lana Samuels was in the same position. 

She was sitting on Marty Fox's kitchen floor, bawling her eyes out, convinced she’d made the biggest mistake leaving an executive job in London and moving her family to join a brand in its infancy.

Today, she’s the Director at WHITEFOX Bayside, specialising in luxury property sales, with an average sale price of $2.38 M - and she’ll be speaking at AREC25.

The next time you feel like giving up, remember: winners are just losers who tried one extra time. What if you’re closer than you realise?


In this training, you’ll learn: 

  • The one tough conversation that flipped Lana’s mindset from quitting to crushing it
  • How being an EA gave her a “Golden Ticket" to fast-track her career
  • How to push through the 6-month slump 
  • The growth hack of getting comfortable with discomfort
  • How to turn your toughest challenges into your greatest accelerators

The full interview is exclusively available in the Real Estate Gym

Tom Panos:

Ladies and gentlemen, I've got with me. Lana Samuels, who is the main writer in the White Fox brand, was in fact working as the PA to Marty Fox. Marty Fox has been in the real estate gym as a student, but also as a contributor, I think one, two, three, so many times. And Lana, you worked as his personal assistant. But the good news is that you've then moved on and progressed and just in a quick one or two minute summary, tell us about who you are, what you do, where you work.

Lana Samuels:

So I've got to start off by telling you this and this is something that you don't know, tom One of the reasons that I'm actually in real estate is because of you, believe it or not. I'll go into the story in a moment, but essentially what happened is I was living in London for 10 years, working in luxury sales in Mayfair. I came back for a holiday and my dad introduced me to Marty, who was his neighbor. His next door neighbor at the time Connected us. We bought my first property that day from Marty. I was actually the first White Fox client ever, believe it or not.

Tom Panos:

Wow.

Lana Samuels:

Two weeks away from launching the brand and he told me about his ideas. He showed me the first logo, showed me the first office. And I went back to London and my husband made me watch the interview that you did with Marty, like nine years ago when he was super, super young, he was in a big suit. Yeah, that was my introduction to real estate. It was actually with you and my husband said it's amazing, this is a real estate coach and trainer and Marty obviously we'd connected with because we'd bought through him. But my first introduction to real estate was you believe it or not?

Tom Panos:

So, susan, send White Fox attention. Marty Fox a recruitment invoice 25 grand. He's made up the money off Lana. She's an incredible performer. She came in to speak at an audition that we had for Eric. By the way, everyone's getting a first move advantage at glance at Lana Samuels, who's one of the speakers at Eric 2025. And it's been a remarkable growth because you've gone off from being a PA and tell me in your own words, it happened in a very short period of time. You've gone from personal assistant to having to look after an office.

Lana Samuels:

You say it in your way I had no real estate experience, mind you, had always been in sales and working in luxury sales, but I'd never done property before. So after months of him calling me on FaceTime and trying to convince me I did it, I quit my job. I moved my husband and I and our entire world back to Melbourne, moved in with my parents at the time and started in real estate 24 hours later, in this tiny little office in South Melbourne, and I thought it would be so easy, because it looks so glamorous and so many people have that perception of real estate that it you know suits, ties, nice dresses, nice bags, cars, and if you've got a great personality you're going to fly. And I learned very quickly that that was just not the case and within four months I quit. I was an actual, I was came in as an agent, Tom, so I went straight in before I became Marty's EA as an agent and I had no network, no database, no experience whatsoever and because I'd been away for 10 years, um, I really had no touch points along the way on who to gravitate to and try and build my business.

Lana Samuels:

So I found it really hard and I quit. I went to Marty's house. I sat on his kitchen floor bawling my eyes out, said I'd made the biggest mistake. I can't work like this. No one's giving me any opportunity. This is too hard, and I think a lot of agents in their first six months hit that breaking point where the bubble bursts and you've got that fatigue and you feel like it doesn't matter what you do, you're just not getting anywhere. You're in sinking sand and I think that's very common in what we do and I'm glad you've shared that.

Tom Panos:

And the reason I say it is that often the people that I'm training are emerging agents or growth agents. Normally the one-on-ones are with attraction agents, but in group settings they're normally the younger agents and they often think to themselves man, am I suited to it? Do I have enough context? Do I look good enough? Have I got the brains for it? Do I have enough context? Do I look good enough? Have I got the brains for it? Like there's a million things that go through people's mind and I always think, lana, when I run into people that say to me I used to be in real estate, and I think to myself, like, did you get out a touch too soon to actually know? Were you working at the right place? Was there something that you weren't doing that if you had been doing it, you wouldn't be saying I used to be in real estate? And what you're saying is this happened after what? Four or five months, did it?

Lana Samuels:

Five months. But I was lucky, tom, because I think a lot of people dip out because they don't have the right mentor or person in their environment to get them by the collar and rein them back in. And that's exactly what Marty did. He essentially said to me enough, pull yourself together. I've been where you are many times over the last 15 years and we need to think of a way to train you correctly. And I was really lucky because it was such a small team. There was four of us. Back then Marty said no, you're not quitting on me, you're going to be my EA. And my ego stepped in and I said to him well, I've been running a team of 20 people in Mayfair in London for 10 years. I'm not an EA. And he said to me don't be stupid, this is the golden ticket. You need to stand next to someone and you need to learn everything. And, honestly, that moment changed my life because I got access and I got a fast track experience with, in my opinion, one of the best operators in Australia.

Tom Panos:

I was so lucky.

Lana Samuels:

I was the first and the last to get that chance and I know how lucky I am to have had that opportunity. But it was a really interesting time because I wasn't just his EA, I became his shadow partner and I was part of the evolution, the growth, the hiring, the trial, the error, and I got exposure to clients that I would never have had the opportunity to be standing next to, to clients that I would never have had the opportunity to be standing next to. So being that second agent alongside him over the years and really learning the intricacies of the business and the industry was just so impactful and it really gave me a fast track speed course in a relatively short period of time. So I was Marty's EA for four years and then he sat me down one day at breakfast and he said to me this is ridiculous. I adore you and I would have you next to me forever, but I'd be doing you a disservice in your career if I didn't let you fly. You've got to go now and you've got to be a standalone agent.

Lana Samuels:

And I was beside myself. I doubted myself. I didn't think that I was, you know, capable to take to the next level. But then I did it and within a week I'd moved on as being a standalone agent, from being his EA and having that safety blanket for four years to hiring an EA that week, opening up the Brighton office in Melbourne with a team of eight young men, and I became basically a business owner, a standalone agent and responsible for other humans and myself. To list, write and close all within a very short period of time and it was a whirlwind, to say the least.

Tom Panos:

Yeah, but, lana, I get the impression you're the kind of person that said I'm in this situation, there's no get out clause. I have to make this work now because I'm in it and you get stretched.

Lana Samuels:

Yep.

Tom Panos:

But that's the value of it, that's the best way to grow. Yes.

Lana Samuels:

And to be uncomfortable is the best thing, and for me, my objective every single day is to be slightly uncomfortable. I'm so comfortable with being uncomfortable now. Nothing can rattle me. I think we deal with such highly stressful situations and you know stressful vendors and the whole process of what we do and having to generate business daily. It's not given to you on a plate. I've got the capacity, like everyone sitting on this call or in the background, to make something of myself, but if it's meant to be, it's up to me. That's the mindset that.

Lana Samuels:

I think I've had from the very beginning. But I've hit roadblocks and I've had that self-doubt and that creeps in from time to time. But I think it keeps you stable and it keeps you thriving and hungry every single day to never be comfortable.

Tom Panos:

It's very easy for the audience to turn around and say she or he has something that I don't, and I actually think that 95% of the time, the only thing they had was oh no, the video has just ended. But I've got good news for you. If you resonated with this and you want to take the next step and move from just being a sayer to a doer, this is your sign to join the real estate gym, where you can get enormous amounts of content, scripts, dialogues, techniques, processes to help you build an ELF business Effortless, lucrative and fun. Press the link right now.