As the Premier League is very likely to wrap up this weekend if Liverpool can muster a win against Spurs, I remembered an interview with Manchester City manager, Pep Guardiola, that has stuck with me. In the interview, he was asked: How do you help your team to get over a blip (of losses)? Do you let them figure it out for themselves?

Pep answered: “The only thing I can do for my team is, in the good moments, and in the bad moments, tell them the reality.”

I love his answer. He knows that his job is to always tell his team (and himself) the reality. That’s my job. And it’s your job too. That’s what is required for strong leadership of yourself and of others.

I first taught the Theory of Reality over a decade ago. I first learned it from reading Robert Ringer’s book ‘Winning through intimidation.’ Ringer explained it like this:

“Reality is neither the way you wish things to be nor the way they appear to be, but the way they actually are. Either you acknowledge reality and use it to your benefit, or it will automatically work against you.”

I first taught it in a training program I did in 2014 called The Build A Better Business program. I was using it to explain how I came up with the eyewear discovery conversation. It came from a deep understanding (and study of) the REALITY of why people actually buy glasses and why they don’t and the REALITY of how clients, patients, the public perceive having eye exams, buying glasses, eye health, what they really care about, what they really don’t care about and more.

Most optometrists spend their entire career complaining because they don’t understand the theory of reality. And so they are constantly disappointed, let down, pissed off, surprised and upset. They’d rather talk about the way things should be. The way they wish things were. They talk about what they deserve…what’s fair… what’s only right etc. Meanwhile reality works against them because they don’t see it or don’t accept it.

For example, people don’t buy glasses from you because you’re a great optometrist with amazing skills and an £100K worth of kit and because you studied for so many years to get qualified and because eye health is important. Nope. You might wish that was the case, you might think that is what is proper and right, you might feel you deserve it, that it is not fair. But that’s not the reality. And reality doesn’t care what you or I wish. It just is.

Dan Kennedy called himself ‘the professor of harsh reality’. He was referring to the same thing. Napoleon Hill taught the principle of accurate thinking. Same thing again. And Pep Guardiola knows he must tell his team the reality, at all times, in order to help them. In case you missed it… success leaves clues.

My team get a LOT of harsh reality from me. And I have 2 things to say about that. First, I’m not harsh. It is REALITY that is harsh! I’m just pointing it out, all the time, like Pep. Because that’s what success takes. And second, I can’t not tell my team the reality because I couldn’t live with myself. I know it’s better for me and for them and for everyone involved. I can’t not do it. Like Keanu Reeves in The Matrix, once you’re unplugged, there’s no going back. You see reality for what it is, when others are ignorantly unaware of the true reality. Most people are asleep. You’re awake.

Embrace the theory of reality guys and girls and you will see amazing growth personally in yourself and in your business and in the people who are around you. Embracing reality makes everyone grow. Like Ringer said, ‘Either you acknowledge reality and use it to your benefit, or it will automatically work against you.’ Make your perception of reality your superpower!