One's true reality is only what one 'perceives' it to be. What ever that is to them - good or bad.
To some extent I disagree with that statement because I believe there is often such a thing as objective reality or facts. If something's happened, it's happened, no matter how much we wish it wasn't so.
It is permissible to have different thoughts about the reality, provided that what has happened has been acknowledged first. This may change how we react to that situation. The quality of our reaction and the choices we make may make us better or worse off. However the facts themselves remain the same.
A related but more modest and in my view less sweeping version of the above quote is the popular saying 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder'.
This acknowledges that tastes vary. It gives room for value judgements or preferences and does not assert that one is objectively better than others.
As an example, when outside, person A might wear T-shirts while B prefers singlets.
A might note that B is exposing more of themselves to sunburn, while B might reply that they like the extra breeze they feel.
While one can list pros and cons of each choice (some backed by fact, others to do with looks or feelings) one cannot say one choice is better for every person all the time. Eg the gymnast might disagree with the Nordic albino who burns in 5 minutes.
Both people have their tastes, make their choices and it doesn't matter to others that they exercise them. Neither choice is morally 'better', 'true', 'worse' or 'false' than the other and perceptions about personal preference (I will not use the term 'reality' here) are quite in order.
Let's now turn to matters of fact which are distinct from the tastes exampled above. The following are factual statements that can be proved or disproved.
* The share price of company A fell by 40% in the last year
* The number of households in Australia rose by 1.8% in the last year
* I bought no properties in 2005.
* A debt collector knocked on my door at 9:31pm last night, wanting to foreclose on my house
Whether any of these happened or not can be readily be ascertained by observation.
Whether I think it might or might not have happened has made no difference to the facts themselves. They are not matters of taste or 'in the eyes of the beholder' - type relativism. Yes I might have liked to have bought a property in 2005, but no amount of thinking or 'perception changing' now can change the reality that I didn't.
Then we move from facts into probability.
Probability is fuzzier than yes/no reality but is still important to assess as true investors only buy when things are stacked in their favour.
If I bought an average house now for $300k 6 months ago, it is very unlikely that I'll be able to sell it now for $400k, especially if all the other average houses in the area are still advertised for $300k. That's not to say that $400k isn't achieveable from someone with lots of money who loves the house but the probability is that it will sell for much nearer the median and I wouldn't gain.
No amount of wishing for more or kidding oneself that it's worth $400k is likely to induce a buyer to cough up that amount. That is unless you make a genuine improvements that make it worth the higher amount to buyers who'll pay. In this case you're changing the buyers perception of value, not your own.
In other words, what you think has no effect on an asset price, and no amount of 'The Secret' style of wishing will change this fact.
It is fashionable to use terms like 'mindset' and 'my perception is my reality', especially in motivational stuff. And I agree that one's approach or temperament to investing has a large bearing on success.
But a lot of the motivational guff, in an effort to make it seem 'easy' or 'magical' ignores objective reality or says it doesn't exist. Instead of ignoring or wishing away facts it might be better to acknowledge and think them through. Those that do this would at least then have greater understanding and intellectual rigour to apply to their investments, so that at the very least they can avoid the duds.
