Becoming all the woman she can be

The past year has seen, communications extraordinaire Phumeza Langa’s wings opening up and following her the flight that she has been putting in the work for in recent years.

Despite the lockdown brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, she has been flourishing in inspiring ways.

Our content creator, Basetsana Makhalemele has a chat with her about her work and how she has managed to structure all that she does.

Ignited Woman (IW): Please tell us a bit about yourself and where you are from?

Phumeza Langa (PL): I am an only child, Johannesburg born and raised woman, mother to a

wonderful little girl who teaches and stretches me every single day. I am married, living in the East Rand

with my family. I am discovering on a daily basis my passions and purpose, and being intentional in

moving towards creating, living and working in a way that allows me to be everything I can be. It is

tough but I must do it, I owe it to myself to explore each and every single part of who I am and my

capabilities as they unfold throughout my life journey.

IW: Can you tell us about the business ventures you are involved in?

PL: I am a Communications Consultant, specialising in digital and copywriting. I am a freelance

writer and have done that for a number of years, a speaker, facilitator and now moving into

the MC space. I do offer those services as an independent contractor.

IW: You are known to be in the communication and you are doing extremely well. Why did you

choose that field and what exactly is your role as a communication consultant?

PL: I stumbled into communications in the best way possible, my high school guidance

teacher recommended Public Relations to me based on what she knew about me. She tasked me

with researching it for myself and I truly am happy about moving in this direction. It’s fascinating to me

that I am still somehow doing certain elements of journalism in my work, and although it is not on

the level of my childhood hero Christiana Amanpour, I am finding ways to share stories in order to

try encourage, teach and open up people’s minds to new ways of learnings - whilst I learn and be

inspired too!

IW: What inspired you as a young woman to take the leap into connecting women and making an

impact?

PL: I have been fortunate to have incredible women who have been amazing sources of kindness,

wisdom, strength through various chapters of my life. There was a time I started to intentionally

connect with more like-minded women, and some were women who were in different spaces in

terms of careers, life stages, continents even. However they always welcomed the questions,

conversations, insights I could share - it became about more than my own learning.

IW: How do you juggle everything that you do? And what keeps you motivated to be the woman you

are today?

PL: I have been fortunate that a lot of the things that I do feed into each other, and so it never feels

like work in the traditional sense, but being able to pursue my passions in ways that help me grow

through learning and exploring what I do and can do. I am also choosing what my energy and time

goes to, be it work, conversation I engage in, spaces that I am in - there are days that feel like a lot is

happening but that’s when I know I need to take a pause and rest a bit before starting up again. It is so

easy to burn out and so much harder to get into a good space again. I am motivated by the fact

that I can continuously grow, and I am deliberate in doing the things that help me grow.