Ryan Holiday is the author of "The Obstacle is the Way." He is former director of marketing at American Apparel and dropped out of college at 19. He gives monthly book recommendations here.

When I first got a job as an assistant in Hollywood, someone told me that the best thing I could do as an assistant was to make other people look good.

It ended up being decent advice, but I’ve since come to understand that the wording wasn’t right. It’s not about just sitting there and working on the way people think about your boss or company.

The way I would explain it to a younger version of myself:

Find canvases for other people to paint on.

That is, completely ignore getting credit, getting ahead, even throw out what your job is supposed to be on paper. Instead, focus all your energy on finding, presenting, and facilitating opportunities that help other people inside the company succeed — particularly the people you directly report to.

The Roman patronage system had a role in it that we have no real analog for. The word is "anteambulo" — literally meaning “clearing the path.” An anteambulo proceeded in front of their patron anywhere they traveled in Rome, making way, communicating messages and generally making their lives easier.

That’s what I am talking about. Your real job, when you just get started, is to support, clear, and aid. If you can do that well, you will be indispensable, I promise.

When you enter a new field, we can usually be sure of a few things:

You’re not nearly as good or as important as you think you are. You have an attitude that needs to be readjusted. Most of what you think you know, or most of what you learned in books or in school, is out of date or wrong.

There’s one fabulous way to work all that out of your system: attaching yourself to people and organizations who are already successful and subsuming your identity into theirs, moving both forward simultaneously. It’s certainly more glamorous to pursue your own glory — but hardly as effective. First, you need to learn and pay your dues.

This is what an apprentice does. And most of the great people in history apprenticed under someone or in some humble task. Bill Belichick, the now four-time Super Bowl-winning coach of the New England Patriots, made his way up the ranks of the NFL by loving and mastering how to do the one thing that coaches hated at the time: analyzing film.

His first job in professional football for the Baltimore Colts was one he volunteered to take without pay — and his insights, which provided ammunition and critical strategies for the game, were attributed exclusively to the other public-facing coaches.

But it gave him two things: first, a role in the organization that allowed him to thrive and carve out space for himself, two, an understanding of the game that today cannot be matched.

My advice to a young person just starting out would be to find a similar opportunity inside their organization or company and take to it like a moth to flame. Just absolutely own it. Don’t worry about credit, don’t worry about getting ahead. Just find something that you can do, that helps others do what they need to do.

The Canvas Strategy is there for you at any time. From what I can tell, it’s one of the few that age does not limit — on either side, young or old. It’s one you can do now — before you have a job, before you’re hired and while you’re doing something else.

Or if you’re starting something new or find yourself inside an organization without strong allies or support. You may even find, as I have, that there’s no reason to ever stop doing it, even once you’ve graduated to heading your own projects.

If you take it, you’ll realize what most people’s egos prevent them from appreciating: The person who clears the path ultimately controls its direction, just as the canvas shapes the painting.

The Success Series is a collection of the best career advice from some of our favorite writers, thinkers, and leaders. This week, we asked what advice they would give to someone starting his or her first job, and to share the lessons they learned from their own first gigs. See other articles in the series here.