The Authors — Kimberley and Stephen Taylor

A partnership behind both the classroom and the book.
For more than two decades, Kimberley and Stephen Taylor taught seminars and workshops focused on communication, confidence, human behavior, emotional awareness, and the quiet qualities that shape meaningful human relationships.

What began as a single adult education workshop eventually evolved into a widely recognized seminar series, How to Be Classy In Spite of Yourself, presented through workshops, continuing education programs, private coaching, and speaking engagements.

Alongside their teaching work, the Taylors built a life rooted in entrepreneurship, creativity, writing, and lifelong learning. Together they developed businesses, traveled extensively, pursued patented inventions and professional speaking, and continually refined and evolved the ideas that would eventually become the foundation of this book.

Their work has always centered around a simple belief:

True class is never about superiority.

It is about awareness, kindness, composure, emotional intelligence, and helping others feel comfortable in our presence.

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Kimberley Taylor

Co-Author · Co-Teacher

Kimberley holds a business degree in Marketing, and has built a career across corporate training and adult education, with her own coaching practice along the way. She is a past member of the National Speakers Association.

She opens and closes every class with the same line: It's never too late to become the best you can be. She means it as an invitation, and anyone who has heard her say it knows that she does.

Stephen Taylor

Co-Author · Co-Teacher

Stephen's career has moved between corporate international business, entrepreneurship, writing, and invention. He holds a Master's in International Management, has co-founded and sold a company, and holds two issued U.S. patents. He is the author of The Circuitous Path series and the founder of University Extension Press.

He lives by a principle that has served him for a lifetime: life is for living, not watching.

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Why This Book

The seminars and workshops we conducted for years had grown into something larger — a body of work made up of scores of sessions, worksheets, Classy Tips newsletters, questions, and the small moments when someone would quietly say, “I never thought of it that way before.”

It wanted to become a book.

We had planned to write it many times over the years, and now we’re glad we finally did. What we created together is not a book of advice, but a book of self-exploration.

And we invite you into our classroom again, just as we taught it.

— Kimberley & Stephen