I was 19 when I first heard of it. My dad was at the time into self-improvement tapes and gave them to me to listen to when he was done. One tape set was "Unlimited Power" by Tony Robbins. That got me hooked. I've read books, listened to tapes, and occasionally attended trainings off and on over the years. Though I've been certified for years it has pretty much been only a hobby for me but I'm starting to get serious with it.
As to your other question, it depends on the person. For that technique I use catalepsy and ideomotor movements. I'm pretty sure they are taught in the book "Training Trances" by John Overdorf and Julie Silverthorn. Do a search on the Beyond Human forum for my posts on the "Finding Lost Objects" thread. When I posted the original technique on Mindlist someone responded by saying that he tried it as a joke at work but the technique really worked for him. So that guy learned the technique from my post. The technique for finding lost objects using catalepsy is pretty much the same thing as using ideomotor movements for finding answers on tests but just applied differently. I'll try to post some more on catalepsy and NLP on the Beyond Human forum over the weekend.
