
The Louisiana Business & Industry Show
Your Business Will Expose You
Your business will expose you. Whatever you're not dealing with as a person the way you manage people, the way you handle money, the way you respond under pressure it will all show up. Terry Simmons learned that over 30 years of building companies in Louisiana, and he's not here to sugarcoat it. Terry G. Simmons, Jr. grew up in Reserve, Louisiana, a town of 5,000 people. He played football at NLU alongside future NFL players, blew out both knees back-to-back, and had to figure out who he was without the sport that defined him. That summer, he woke up at 3am every morning, worked three jobs hospital dietary, a parish job, and a dollar theater and saved $7,000 to launch his first business. Thirty years later, he runs Orange Strategy, a branding, strategic communications, and human capital development firm serving Fortune 500 companies and Louisiana entrepreneurs alike. He's also the architect behind the Dow Leadership Academy and Nucor Steel's New Level Academy programs, turning Louisiana's young people into engineers, operators, and executives who choose to stay home. In this episode, Terry breaks down: — Why most people start a business for the wrong reason (and why it destroys them) — How entrepreneurship is really just a synonym for leadership — Why your personal flaws will always show up in your business, no exceptions — How he built Orange Strategy from scratch over 30 years of wins and failures — What Louisiana businesses are getting wrong about the next generation of workers — The personal branding strategy he's been running since 2015 that keeps generating Fortune 500 clients Subscribe to the Louisiana Business and Industry Show: https://www.youtube.com/ @LouisianaBusinessandIndustrySh



