Spotlight on Monique van der Walt
In 2016 I realised I would never reach my potential being constrained in the corporate world, and that I have gifts and blessings that need to be used and paid forward to the full in this life. So, I resigned from corporate PR, turning my back on a prosperous career and comfortable salary, setting out on the road less travelled. My map: faith, my compass: God-given intuition. My plan: push ahead, committing wherever I’m lead. My end goal: fulfilling my life’s true purpose.
Cape Town born and bred, I lived there for the 1st 20 years of life, followed by 10 years in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), where I travelled far & wide doing PR & image stewardship for the Caltex KZN South Branded Marketer. I then moved back to Cape Town for a PR position with Hirschs, where in 8 months I saw what God and I could do and I realised I was wasting what I had been given.
I packed up my life, sold my Cape Town flat and followed my heart back to KZN. I searched and found a fixer-upper farmhouse with two tenanted cottages in an off-the-grid village called Bulwer in Southern KZN Midlands, and in the shadow of the Southern Drakensberg mountains. This is my base from where I explore KZN, from country to coast and from bush to beach.
My love for this province inspires what I do now: Influencer, Social Media (SM) Tourism, PR and Photography (and #TravelChatSA Host). KZN is bursting with potential, in people and in places – I make it my mission on SM to find content producers, proudly KZN brands & organisations, sharing their content as well as producing my own.
I do this 17 hrs a day, 7 days a week, and I love it! Yes, my income is less than a 5th of what I was earning in corporate, but I am happy, purpose driven and not money driven. To me its simple: I know I can go out there and bring home the macon, but I know with the same certainty that that is not my purpose.
I am passionate about the South African Tourism initiative #WeDoTourism; just saying “everyone is a tourism ambassador” gives me goosebumps. I want to grow me, grow you, grow us – cos what we all want and need in the end is to grow, to be better, so lets do it together.
Twitter: Monique_pr_
Instagram: Monique_pr_
LinkedIn: Moniquevanderwalt
Facebook: Monique.pr.kzn
