The Canvas Strategy

I’m making my way through the Tim Ferris' book Tools of Titans. It’s well over 600 pages but it has a lot of useful, interesting advice, though I'll admit some of it is a bit out there. He breaks the book up into three areas; Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise. The book is really just a summary of podcasts done over the years with some other advice added in.

One piece of advice I appreciated is what he called the canvas strategy. The idea really came from Ryan Holiday. The name refers back to when apprenticeships were common; a budding  painter learns his craft by serving under a master and doing such things as preparing his canvas. 

In today’s terms it’s about serving the people you work for…sounds like servant-leadership! Some examples he gives includes ideas such as giving your boss an idea you came up with and not looking for credit or finding out the job no one else wants to do and taking it on yourself.

This strategy will accomplish a number of things. It will keep your ego from getting to big.  As you make those around you successful, you will also become more successful; the adage "a rising tide lifts all boats." Finally, if you're feeding ideas to your boss, or coworkers, then you will start steering the direction they are going.