Commencement 2025 | News | Portsmouth Abbey School, Rhode Island

On Sunday, May 25, 2025, Class of 1981 graduate James Farley, himself the parent of a high school graduate this year, offered a few words of wisdom to the Class of 2025 during Portsmouth Abbey School’s 95th Commencement. Below is his address.

“Thank you, Mr. Walter and members of the Board of Directors.  I’m grateful for this moment together.

To the teachers and clergy – thank you for nurturing this class.  You have prepared them for an intellectual, spiritual, and curious life, and I can vouch for that.

To the parents and family members here – you must feel great about choosing Portsmouth Abbey?  I’m sure they’ll thank you later. 

Our daughter Grace is graduating high school as well.  I know exactly what it’s like sitting where you are today.  Pride.  A bittersweet feeling.  And a relief!

So, Class of 2025 graduates – if there were ever a moment to ask your parents for something special, it’s today.  A Bronco – a Ford Bronco, that’s exactly what you should ask them for!

But seriously, it’s really a special privilege to share this moment with you.  I have a forty-five-year-old, red Portsmouth Abbey yearbook on my shelf, filled with experiences.  But I look back at my time here as the beginning of becoming my own person and starting to look in the mirror and ask that simple but powerful question.

“Who am I?”

The answer to most questions in life lie in that simple question. Not to answer it.  But to begin to answer it. 

Acknowledge the gaps that exist between the person you see in that mirror and the face you show the world. 

You have grown up at a time when many choose to focus on the face they present to others.  Curated selfies, distorted through filters, seeking validation with ‘likes’ and ‘loves.’ It will turn out to be a waste of time. 

Here, you’ve learned there are bigger ideas, greater truths in life, especially about yourselves.

At Portsmouth Abbey, I made a thousand compromises, trying to fit in.  There was enormous pressure from our parents to excel – I’m sure you don’t know what I’m talking about… 

And I remember that, early on, some of my friends were cheating on an important test here.  I lied and told everyone I had cheated, too, even when I couldn’t bring myself to do it, actually. 

Can you imagine?  Not my finest moment.  Pretending to cheat to impress my friends.

The ancient Greeks urged us to “know thyself.” But before you can “know thyself,” first you have to “face thyself.” 

Instead of a perfect selfie – look to perfect the self.

Everyone at Ford was watching the White Lotus this winter.  It was really about people trying to find their authentic self in a complicated world. 

One of the actors, Walton Goggins, said something interesting.  He said: “What has brought me an extraordinary amount of peace in my life is when I finally fell in love with myself. …You can say it’s about finding God, but when you find your God, you’re still going to have to face yourself.”

When I first began looking in the mirror and asking who I was every day, that was the start of that journey. 

I started taking stock of my small, silent triumphs. I was wasting time worrying about the unknown: college, career, and whom I would love. But I came to realize that the only playbook I needed is that one simple question: “Who am I?”  All the rest fell into place. 

Before I even left Portsmouth Abbey, I began understanding what was important to me.  At my graduation, I wasn’t in line to be valedictorian.  But I received an award that went mostly unnoticed – except for me.

It was the Headmaster’s Medal, a humanitarian award given by the monks for supporting a fellow student.  Today, you call it the Head of School Award – and I know there are six graduates who are following in my footsteps today. 

I received it for helping a student named Carlos every morning put his prosthetic leg on and get around campus.  I enjoyed assisting him – it surprised me, and we became friends. 

While a student here, I also started taking the bus almost every week to Raytheon to learn how to draft.  And I took a lot of trips to the Naval War College to attend lectures. 

Nobody knew. I didn’t tell my teachers, my parents, or my peers.  Because I wasn’t doing it for them. 

It was for me.

My first big job out of school was as a salesman at IBM.  It made my parents happy – kind of like if one of you were to get a job at Apple today.  But I realized quickly that I hated that job.  That’s because I had a head start knowing myself at Portsmouth. 

And I looked myself in the mirror each morning and asked: “Who am I?” – I didn’t have to wait long to know my future wasn’t at IBM.  It wasn’t my passion.  

I left and went as fast as I could to the auto industry. 

This is the part where I should mention that, at age fifteen, I saved up and bought a 1966 Ford Mustang for $500 and rebuilt the engine.  I drove it across the country, straight through the nights, with no license and no insurance.  That was another moment when I discovered who I was. 

For any younger siblings in the crowd… your parents will appreciate this: please do not do what I did!  But I guess it’s no surprise I ended up where I am today! 

After leaving IBM, I went to Toyota, a Japanese company.  My father had been a naval officer in the Pacific in World War II, and my grandfather was a factory worker at Ford. 

Accepting a job at Toyota and having to explain that to my family… I really, really had to know myself.  I needed to be able to face myself in the mirror and say: Hey, I know what I’m doing here. 

Even if others were confused, I wasn’t.  

I left Toyota after twenty years to join Ford.  I looked in the mirror that day and posed the same question.  The person who stared back at me was someone who had a plan, who believed in himself enough to take a big leap. 

Others around me in those twenty years at Toyota jumped ship at any new opportunity or when they were getting bored.  But not me.  I always asked myself that question, and the answer was: “Not now, wait.” 

Then, one day, at the right moment, it said: “Now!”

When I was asked to become CEO of Ford, I had a lot of self-doubt.  I knew it would be a huge challenge.  My dad was passed over as CEO of a large bank, and I remember how much it hurt him.  Every night, he was just so distraught.  Yet, how courageous he was in not letting that decision affect his identity.  

So, I kind of knew that when I took this job at Ford, it might not work out, and I had to be alright with that.

I asked my wife Lia for her advice, as I always do, and she quizzed me: “What do you want, buddy?”  So, I made a list – all the things I would do if I were CEO, what I would have to give up, what the risks and opportunities would be.  And, just like any major decision I’ve had to make over the last forty-five years, it came down to the same old question.  The whole list was there, but what did I want to do?

As it turns out, Lia knew me better than I knew myself in that moment.  Sometimes we need our loved ones to hold up that mirror for us to help us see who we are. 

“Of course you should go for it,” she said.  “You’ve been preparing for decades!  Are you kidding me?”

It turns out, I’m essentially the same kid who was sitting in one of those seats almost forty-five years ago.  I just hadn’t taken the journey to know myself yet.  But I had started.  I took the first steps here at Portsmouth Abbey.  Standing in front of the mirror and asking that foundational question.

I learned here that if you start asking, sooner than later, the answers will start coming from within yourself.  

Maybe pray, listen to ones you trust.  You have to listen carefully though, because it’s often very quiet at first.  But when you start hearing it, it becomes your purest compass, your true north. 

So, here is my challenge to you today.  Yes, like your peers around the country you’re going to spend time every day on the face you show the world.  I urge you also to spend a few minutes each day facing yourselves.  Asking yourselves: “Who am I?”

James 1:23 says of the one who ignores his principles: “He is like a man who looks at his own face in a mirror… sees himself, then goes off and promptly forgets what he looked like.”   

As you head off to college – and to the ever-larger transitions to come throughout your life – follow that compass. 

Face thyself.  Know thyself.

Humbled by your faults and shortcomings, giving yourself credit for victories small and large, known to all or, often, only to you – don’t let anybody else tell you who you are: your parents, your teachers, your peers. 

So, get to it. 

And, while you look into a mirror every day with this question in mind, I really, really, really hope you’re doing it in your new Bronco.

Godspeed, and congratulations, Class of 2025!”

Farley gifts Margot Campau '25 a Ford Bronco trucker hat.

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