5 things to know about toth shop’s thought leader summer school 2026

2 days ago
3 min read

✔ Monday, June 15 – Friday, June 19

✔ 12p-12:15pET | 15 minutes via Google Meet

✔ Free of charge – a gift from toth shop – and no sales pitches

✔ Register by emailing: hello@tothshop.com by friday, june 12, 12pET

It's back by popular demand: toth shop’s Thought Leader Summer School.

Join us on June 15 – June 19 at 12noonET for five days of 15-minute live instruction and writing to help you build one of your most important assets: your thought leader voice.

Interested? Here are five things to know before you grab that virtual backpack.

1. the why: AI is not the thought leader – you are, my friend.

AI can help organize thoughts. It can speed up workflows. It can even help with structure.

But it can’t replace your years of experience, education, advice, ick moments, triumphant returns like a phoenix, or the good, bad, and ugly lessons learned.

The world does not need another almost-too-perfect article that sounds like everyone else. It needs your ideas, your weird observations, and your human “aha!” moments.

Good thought leadership isn't about sounding smart. It's about helping someone else think differently.

That's where your voice comes in.

2. this is for people who say to themselves: “i think i have something to say, but i just don’t know where to start.”

We hear this all the time:

"I want to share more."

"I don't know what to write about."

"I don't know if anyone cares."

Here's the good news: you do not need to arrive to thought leader summer school with polished ideas.

Thought leadership isn't reserved for keynote speakers, authors, or people with giant LinkedIn followings.

If you have expertise, experience, or lessons you've learned through work or life – you qualify.

In our book, thought leaders are people who have receipts – years of experience, expertise, learnings, younameit – and they’re willing to share what they know.

3. there are no grades – but there is writing.

Each 15-minute session follows a simple rhythm:

Quick hello (no small talk)
One mini-lesson
One practical strategy
A guided free-write prompt
A small challenge to carry forward

The biggest rules? No editing while you're writing. No backspacing. No judging. (Especially, no judging of yourself.) Just the start of your thought leadership on the page.

4. the lessons have very little to do with grammar.

If you’re still traumatized by 6th grade language arts, we understand. You’re safe here. We're not teaching comma placement.

We're talking about things like:

How to get started.
How to give yourself permission to write in your voice.
Teaching versus selling.
Finding the lessons you can turn into something bigger than a bumper sticker.
Paying attention to the questions people always ask you.

Because honestly, writing is rarely the issue. Most of the time, people are trying to build confidence in their own thinking.

5. you'll leave with more than you came with.

By the end of five days, our hope is that you'll have:

More confidence in your own voice
Greater clarity around your perspective
A fresh way of thinking about thought leadership
The beginning of a real thought leadership piece
A “I’m ready to put myself out there” attitude and momentum

Because momentum matters.

And if you're anything like us, one small spark has a funny way of becoming something much bigger. (Fun fact: toth shop started unofficially back in 2014 with just one thought leader client.)

bonus question: how much does this cost?

This costs you nothing. It’s free of charge – a gift from toth shop to you. Because we really just want more smart, experienced, educated, human voices out in the world right now. (And also, we’re over the flat, ChatGPT thought leadership pieces we’re reading.)

So consider this your official invitation to thought leader summer school 2026. (Can we make TLSS26 a thing? Maybe.)

Bring your lunch. Bring your curiosity. Bring some of those ideas that have been rolling around in your brain. Bring a pen/pencil and paper, an open Google Doc, or a note in your phone.