About Joudie Weekes
I got laid off in 2023 after 23 years in IT. It should have crushed me. Instead, it forced me to ask a question I’d been avoiding: “What am I actually building?” Not my career. Not my income. My life. And the answer was terrifying: Nothing. I’d spent 23 years reacting. Paying bills. Meeting expectations. Going through the motions. I looked successful on paper, but I was living on autopilot. I was living on default. But here’s what really made me walk away from IT: I couldn’t watch one more man destroy his life. In 23 years, I saw the same pattern over and over. Successful guy. Good career. Respected. Then one decision—an affair, an escape, a moment of weakness—and decades of work gone. Marriage destroyed. Kids hurt. Legacy torched. And it was completely preventable. These men didn’t lack ambition. They lacked self-awareness. They didn’t lack success. They lacked character infrastructure. They were living on default, reacting instead of deciding, performing instead of leading themselves. The layoff was my wake-up call. I took it. I realized: Most men aren’t authoring their lives. They’re reading someone else’s script and calling it success. That’s when I left IT entirely. Not because I failed. But because I finally saw the real problem. Men don’t need another strategy. They need to stop living on default and start authoring their own lives.
What I Do Now
I help professionals build the clarity, standards, and discipline to lead themselves first, so they stop drifting through a life that looks successful but feels hollow.
Through Leader of One, I work with driven professionals who are winning on paper but feel misaligned inside. People who are tired of reacting and ready to start leading with intention.
Because leadership doesn’t start at work. It starts with you.
If you’re ready to close the gap between who you are and how you show up, let’s talk.
