You know, that is a very tough question to answer.

I could tell you to save up your money and vacation time and check out NLP Comprehensive.

Some of the best introductory NLP books are out of print. TranceFormations is a really good one about NLP and hypnosis, but out of print.

The basic books are: Using Your Brain for a Change, Frogs Into Princes, Tranceformations, Using Your Brain and Keeping the Change, Reframing, Magic in Action, and any books on or by Milton Erickson you can find.

All books by the Andreas's are good. Core Transformation by Connie-Rae and Tamara Andreas is good. Heart of the Mind by Steve and Connie-Rae is good. And Steve Andreas's Transforming the Self is really good, too. It is NLP meets the self-image. Nice.

My intro to it was from Tony Robbins, and he's a good intro person. A bit gung ho, but, hey. It's what was needed to catch my attention at the time.

Really, though, there is no replacing good training. And you should not skimp on it if this is a financial possibility. NLP Comprehensive is expensive, but I *highly* recommend it.

NLPU with Dilts and Delozier is good, if slightly more laid back and academic. NLP Comp is very polished. Good polished. They know what they are doing and are very professional about it. At the same time they are very personable.

You know, you might want to also check out Turtles All the Way Down as well as Whispering in the Wind by Grinder, et al.

The way I'd do it is read some books, play with the techniques, maybe get a seminar on tape or two. The NLP Comprehensive website has tons of tapes. When you're ready, make the investment and go to a month long training.

If your experience is like mine was, a whole new world will open up to you and you will have a month of sheer heaven. It was one of the best times in my life.

However, there is no telling if your experience will be like mine. There's the rub, eh? So, maybe shop around. There are weekend long seminars people give that are fairly inexpensive. NLP patterns are best learned in social scenarios where you can do them and have the experience of multiple perceptual positions. That is, the doer, the do-ee, and the observer.

Definitely read all the books you can and listen to some good tapes. Maybe watch some videos. Bandler is extremely entertaining and sophisticated.

You will find a lot of stuff about NLP on the internet. A lot of people share a whole bunch of files with NLP content. Some infringe upon copyright laws, some don't.

[This message has been edited by babayada (edited May 07, 2004).]