Myra Nourmand
From a Reluctant Start to Staying Power She says, “My model is what’s old is new again,” and her story shows that what’s old is really what has staying power. Full of the steady knowledge and confidence that only decades of hard work and courage yield, Myra Nourmand’s generation- spanning career has much to teach us about playing the long game and winning. Like many of the most memorable success stories, Nourmand’s story begins with hardship. Being born in a displaced persons camp in Germany, her parents were Holocaust survivors who eventually came to the United States. Sadly, however, Nourmand’s father would die in front of her from a heart attack. She says watching how hard her parents worked to start their new life in the States, compounded by this tragic loss, locked her work ethic into place as she felt driven to care for her mother. Nourmand’s past would be a launch pad for a real estate career she was reluctant to start. Working various positions in sales through school, she met her husband while attending the University of Buffalo. She married at 21, and by the time she was 30, she was a stay-at-home mom to three. Eventually moving across the country to California, Nourmand remembers she and her husband dreaming about the jobs they would get, only to be met with a declining economy that wasn’t exactly prioritizing new faces. However, they got through: Nourmand using her work ethic and persistence to help support the family and
her husband, who would eventually open Nourmand and Associates with five other people. Of the time, she says, “We were as green as they come and very young and hungry.” Meanwhile, Nourmand worked as a stay- at-home mom; she says, “I loved my job ... I was raising three kids, very involved in the community [through their activities].” She remembers, “I had a T-shirt that said, ‘If a woman’s place is in the home, why am I always in the car.’” It was this involvement with her community that would push Nourmand to make a move into real estate. After a year or two, her husband said, “Myra, get your license. This is ridiculous. People know you. They trust you. You would be amazing.” At first, she said no, in part because the idea of working in her husband’s business sounded like a “formula for failure.” But he insisted that she need only sell to her friends, and when she felt like it, and so Nourmand finally agreed. house,’ ‘I’m getting divorced. I am moving out of the area,’ ‘I want to change schools,’ And I’d get on the phone and call my husband, and I’d say, ‘Who do you have in your office who can handle this?’ She says: As I was sitting with [other] mothers, I would hear them say, ‘I need a bigger
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