Moving Forward
SLP Speaker: Focus and Discipline Important Life Lessons
Preparation, discipline, and focus helped Eunice native and LSU-Eunice graduate Peter Burney achieve success in the military, in moving up the corporate ladder, and in all of his life.
He was commencement speaker as LSU-E awarded 109 degrees during fall commencement ceremonies. Burney, who retired in 2016 as senior vice president for Hallmark Cards, offered what he called “a few nuggets” for the graduates as they moved on to further education or to begin careers.
He had been with Hallmark for 25 years and at the time of retirement was in charge of the supply chain and business establishment, responsible for manufacturing, logistics, global procurement, engineering, quality, demand and inventory management, and information technology.
After graduating from LSU-E, he earned a bachelor’s degree from LSU in Baton Rouge, served as signal corps officer in the 82nd Airborne Division, and then earned a master’s
in business administration from the University of Massachusetts.
He used a military experience to make a point about focus. He said that during his training, jumping out an airplane made him anxious, but that advice from a master sergeant who had more than 200 jumps under his belt helped to overcome the anxiety.
“When you get nervous. you lose your focus. and you almost guarantee that will make a mistake,” the sergeant said. “I choose to focus my thoughts on training and my preparation to do this safely.”
From that, Burney said he learned to stay focused on what’s important, a lesson that has stayed with him through the rest of his life.
“Be prepared,” he said. “because preparation gives you confidence and helps you calm your nerves and manage distractions from your goals.”
“Be prepared, because preparation gives you confidence and helps you calm your nerves and manage distractions from your goals.”
LSU-E Commencement Speaker, Peter Burney
Discipline, he said, “is doing what supposed to be done even when you don’t want to do it.” He said it is “how you find peace from those burdens of the mind that create life movies with unhappy endings known as regrets. When you are disciplined, your days are a whole lot less stressful.”
Burney cited, Eat That Frog, a book by Brian Tracy, that explained that if the worst thing you have to do during a day is eat a frog, “do it first thing in the morning. Get it out of the way so the rest of your day can be productive rather than being saddled with that unproductive nagging feeling.”
Burney’s final nugget dealt with relationships.
“Relationships are everything,” he said. “I think being liked is very important and highly under-rated,” he said. “They don’t teach us about relationships in school.”
When you are having a conversation with someone, he advised, “make sure that person knows that they are the most important person to you in that moment,” he said.
Four students graduated Summa Cum Laude for maintaining a 3.8 to 4.0 grade point average: Chastity Wilson of Eunice, Leah Romaine of Iota, Shelly Romaine of Iota, and Wade Ashford of Baton Rouge.
Magna Cum Laude honors students with a 3.5 to 3.79 grade point average were Raymond Zorn of Opelousas, Taylor Gary of Lake Charles. Chelsea Savoie of Opelousas, Kevin Duong of Eunice, Mikayla Hollier of Arnaudville, Caleb Thibodeaux of Church Point, Raymond Mendenhall, III of Ville Platte, Sarah Arnaud of Eunice, Myra Auzenne of Opelousas, Stephanie Cooper of Kaplan, Kalyn Duplechin of Mamou, Brittany LeBlanc of Jennings and Elizabeth Roberie of Church Point.
Eunice, LA 70535
