Thomas P. Farley is an American manners expert known in the media as "Mister Manners." He is also a keynote speaker and workshop leader, a radio and television personality and a journalist.
Starting in spring 2020, in direct response to the COVID-19 pandemic, he launched a syndicated column with the Tribune Content Agency called "Ask Mister Manners." It was also during the pandemic that he unveiled the What Manners Most podcast.
At the end of 2021, Farley introduced a slate of programming designed specifically for companies looking to ease their teams' transition back to the office after nearly two years of remote work. This curriculum, called "2022: The Year We Bounce Back," deals with RTO (return to office); hybrid work environments; managing remote teams; and how to be one's best virtual self when on videoconferencing platforms such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams.
Mister Manners
It was during his near-decade-long tenure at Town & Country (2000-2008), that Farley first became known to national and New York television audiences as an expert on issues of better behavior, appearing on CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS and in periodicals such as The New York Times and New York magazine.
Throughout 2011, Farley served as a guest host for Living Today, a three-hour program that aired live daily on the Martha Stewart Living Radio network on Sirius XM 110, satellite radio, introducing, among other ideas, a segment called "Manners Mondays."
In 2017, as a special correspondent for the Today Show, Farley reported for the series "Manners on the Move," which looked at specific areas of incivility in America. The series aired during that year's May sweeps.
From the onset of the pandemic, he has served as a regular on-camera resource for networks seeking to provide their viewers with insights into how to interact safely and considerately in an age of social distancing. He has been quoted as saying: "In the early days of this battle, long before we had a single vaccine, our most effective deterrents to COVID-19 were common courtesy and consideration—the twin tenets of good etiquette."
He promotes both ideals regularly in his aforementioned syndicated column, which appears in the Chicago Tribune, New York Daily News, Baltimore Sun, and the Sun Sentinel among other national newspapers. He also covers these topics in the "What Manners Most" podcast, which examines the cultural ramifications of the pandemic and the effects it has had on the way individuals interact.
As a journalist, among the major feature stories Farley has written during his career include the tale of a cruise to Antarctica; a first-person account of flying with the Blue Angels; and reportage from volcano-ravaged Montserrat, in the West Indies. (Shortly after he and his photographer left, the island's airport was permanently closed, due to a pyroclastic flow that destroyed the runway).
Farley is founder of the Experts Collective, a group of like-minded lifestyle experts that also includes digital lifestyle guru Mario Armstrong, animal lifestyle expert Wendy Diamond and dating and relationships expert Andrea Syrtash, among several others.