February 3rd, 1637, Amsterdam.
A sailor steps off a merchant ship, salt still crusted in his hair, clutching a worn leather pouch that holds his entire life savings.
For eight long months at sea, he has had one dream… to buy a single Semper Augustus tulip bulb, no, not the flower… all he wanted was the bulb itself.
He pushes his way through a crowd of frantic men, waving contracts and shouting numbers so high they could buy entire houses; this sailor doesn’t understand the math, but he understands one thing, and that is “Desire”.
In every port, he has heard the same story.
Chimney sweeps turning into wealthy merchants.
Ordinary men becoming rich overnight.
Fortunes being made from flowers.
So he bets it all; his entire savings, his wife’s dowry, even his house, all used as collateral… all for one tulip bulb contract.
And then, four days later, the market collapses.
The tulip mania that had gripped Holland since 1634 came crashing down in February 1637, and that sailor, along with thousands of others, lost everything.
But there is something that still troubles historians till this day… even as prices were falling, even as fortunes evaporated, even as logic screamed “get out”; people were still buying.
Of course, logic wonders why?
Well, the short answer is… because the market has never really been about tulips, or contracts, it is not about forex, stocks, or crypto.
The market has and will always be about the story your brain tells you when everything is at stake.
This isn’t just history…it is psychology.
Hardcore psychology, backed by neuroscience and tested in the crucible of real markets, where fortunes disappear in milliseconds and your brain turns against you.
As Tom Hougaard, author of Best Loser Wins, puts it:
“People don’t fail because they don’t know enough about technical analysis. They fail because they don’t understand what the market is doing to their minds.”
And that is what this video is about.
We are diving into the five psychological principles that separate traders who survive from those who become just another story told in forums and videos like this one.
These aren’t trading “tips.”
These are rewiring to your operating system.
This is the gospel of trading psychology, according to Tom Hougaard.
