Man’s Life is SAVED By a Mysterious Voice! What Happen NEXT Will Leave you SPEECHLESS with Bill Bennett

Alex Ferrari 0:34
I'd like to welcome to the show Bill Bennett how you doin Bill?

Bill Bennett 2:22
Pretty good Alex. Pretty good.

Alex Ferrari 2:23
Good. My friend. Thank you so much for coming on the show. I'm excited to talk to you, my friend. It's rare that I have filmmakers on the show. And especially filmmakers talking about spirituality, so about intuition and about things that are not just film.

Bill Bennett 2:41
It's funny kind of mix. I mean, a lot of a lot of filmmakers, of course, a very nuts and bolts and absolutely denounce the whole notion of intuition. But and there's a wonderful quote from Steven Spielberg, where he talks about the whisper of the voice. It's all about intuition. You know, and he's been very much guided by intuition throughout his working life.

Alex Ferrari 3:05
He's done okay, that I think he's doing okay. He's doing okay. Okay. Yeah, he's a couple movies.

Bill Bennett 3:11
I wouldn't mind his resume.

Alex Ferrari 3:13
Sir, I wouldn't mind one of his films. The worst, even the worst one. What's still

Bill Bennett 3:20
Here you go. Alex, what do you reckon is Steven Spielberg's worst movie? I can tell you, I can tell you my choice straight up!

Alex Ferrari 3:28
The worst Steven Spielberg

Bill Bennett 3:30
Worse maybe Spielberg ever made Yeah

Alex Ferrari 3:34
I mean, arguably 1941 is up there.

Bill Bennett 3:37
That's what I'd say.

Alex Ferrari 3:38
I think 1941's probably up there. But that was when he was at his highest hubris. He thought he could do no wrong and he had to, I think the universe said, no, no, no.

Bill Bennett 3:49
Slap you at the back. You know, interestingly, with 1941, he had been mesmerized by Steven by Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, yes. He is written in Rolling Stone magazine, in fact, at the time that he regarded Dr. Strangelove as the most perfect movie ever made. And so 1941 was his attempt to make Dr. Strangelove and of course, he could never be Kubrick. Even though, he idolized Kubrick Yeah,

Alex Ferrari 4:20
Yeah, he I mean, there's nobody can be Kubrick. Kubrick is Kubrick is I mean, there's no anyway, but that's another conversation for another show. But for this one, wanted to talk about your spiritual journey and what has been going on in in your life that got you to this place. So first and foremost, were you spiritual growing up, or is that something that was taught to you as a child?

Bill Bennett 4:45
No, no, no. I am. Both my parents were dentists. I grew up in a very in an environment that was very much evidence based. There was no religion No such there was no spirituality. It just wasn't even discussed. It just didn't ever come into the conversation. And then I've started up my working life. In fact, I went to med school straight after, straight out of school. I spent two years med school realized that it wasn't for me, and I switched across to journalism, because I loved writing. And then I got a job at the ABC Australian Broadcasting Corporation, which is like Australia's equivalent of the BBC. And I was trained there as a journalist, and that if anything hammered into me even more, so this notion of being factually based evidence based, and so forth. So no, my whole background was very much rooted in the here and now.

Alex Ferrari 5:47
And for people listening, I mean, your directing career, your filmmaking career, you've worked with some of the, you know, the biggest movie stars in the world, legendary people. And, and I wanted to ask you, you, according to your story, that I've seen your movie, so I know the story. You were on your way to a project. Correct. When that, you know,

Bill Bennett 6:08
I in fact, I was in New Orleans. And I was working on a thriller with Burt Reynolds. Okay. Yeah, temporarily. Yeah. And I was, I had to leave New Orleans early one morning to go for casting session back in LA, I was running late and slept in a little bit, I was going to the airport, it was before dawn, it was dark. And I knew New Orleans enough to know that there was a quick way to the airport, you know, because I didn't want to be late, I had to drop my rental car rental car off and so forth. And I was approaching this intersection, it was a green light up ahead and went to accelerate on the green light, because I didn't want to get stuck on the red. And as I went to accelerate, a voice came in and said, slow down. And my, I'd never, I'd never heard of voice before I just My first reaction was, I need coffee. And so I just dismissed it tightly, and went to accelerate again. And the voice came in a second time, more emphatically slow down. And I thought this is weird. So I slowed down. And then out of nowhere, this gigantic truck ran a red light on the cross train. And then I slammed on the brakes. And it just narrowly missed me. But had that voice not said me slow down. And more importantly, had had I not listened to that voice and acted on it. That truck would have killed me. So I pulled up on the other side of the intersection I was just shaking. And you know, because it had been such a narrow miss. And I thought what happened? You know, what was that? You know, what, what was that voice? Why did it save my life? And that really then propelled me on a 10 year journey to discover what that voice was? I had three question, what was the voice? Where did it come from? And why did it save my life? Those are three questions I had. And that really propelled me on a 10 year journey, which ended up being me making a film called PGS. Intuition is your personal guidance system. I went around the world three times I chased down mystics and channelers. And you know, Hindu Hindu masters? Also I went to what's his name? Oh, you know, look, neuroscientists, you know, I was really, really compelled to just try and find the source of this mystery. So what I gotta say, Alex, in the process, what happened is I went through a fundamental change. You know, I started off the movie as a journalist, and I ended up as somebody who, I guess, somebody who was prepared to put aside preconceptions, and go, alright, what if, what if this is true? You know, what if we are, what if what I propose is that we have a guidance system that works like every other system in our body, like a circulatory system, you know, a nervous system and so forth. But it's an energetic system that seeks to guide us through life. And that's really what the film proposes.

Alex Ferrari 9:41
So, in your definition of your opinion, what is intuition?

Bill Bennett 9:47
Well, here's the thing, and I started off the film. And I gotta say, going back when I started do a lot of research after after an incident with the track and because I didn't know what intuition was, I mean, I kind of thought, you know, I sort of thought I knew what intuition was, like, I'm sure a lot of people think they know what intuition is. But when I really dug down deep, I became very confused as to what a definition of intuition is because it seemed to vary all over the place. And you know what, some people call it gut instinct. They call it intuition what what other people called, you know, a mystical intervention, I call it an intuition, so forth. And I came up with a definition, intuition is a sudden, unexplained inside the columns unaided by logic, intellect, or expertise. Intuition is a sudden, unexplained inside that comes unaided, by logic, intellect, or expertise. And that's the definition that I finally kind of forged because I couldn't find a definition that worked for me. And that met all of the requirements, if you like, for what happened to me. But what I discovered, as I as I dug down deeper is intuition was kind of like this catch all phrase for things that people kind of have a sense of, but didn't really didn't really kind of pull down. So what I, what I did is I came up, I came up with this notion that's believed that there are four types of intuition. There's what I call survival intuition, which is intuition that keeps us alive, keeps keeps the species alive. It's like a mother's intuition. You know, a mother is downstairs, and she just has this intuitive thing, I better go check on my baby, he goes upstairs, and there's something wrong with the baby and had she not had that intuitive mother's calling to check on a child, the child would be there. So there's some survival intuition. And we feel in ourselves, you know, you you're walking through a park, and you go, the two ways home, you know, the packstack at night, and you go, well, that's a shortcut. And that's the longer way, and the long way is letting the shortcut is dark. And you just get this feeling of, I don't want to go down that dark path. And then you find out later on that somewhat, somebody's been killed, you know, going down that, you know, so the survival, intuition and survival intuition comes from the body. It's kind of like a heightened sense of awareness. It's a very primitive kind of body based thing. The second type of intuition is what I call cognitive intuition, which, which comes down to this whole thing of, of a gut instinct for something, you see it with highly skilled people. You know, they're talking about being in the zone or having a gut instinct for something. It's based on what I call subsume memory recall, expertise. I mean, a CEO, for instance, will make a gut decision on something and go against all of the research, all of the board's recommendations, he just pulls pluck something out of the air and goes, right, we're going to do this and turns out to be absolutely the right decision. And he's labeled brilliant, you know, and you have people like, you know, Elon Musk and Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs was a great believer in intuition for us. Yeah. And what they do is they, they rely on this, on the calling, have the expertise, the expert knowledge to make to make an intuitive decision. The third type of intuition is what I call mystical intuition, which is what happened to me in the car where it's inexplicable. voice comes down, so slow down. You know, there's, there's no, it cannot be explained scientifically. I mean, Malcolm Gladwell, for instance, and some some other people, Daniel Kahneman and so forth, have explained cognitive intuition scientifically, of Miss mystical intuition cannot be explained scientifically, because it is some kind of calling from a place that cannot be explained. The fourth type of intuition is what I call proxy intuition. And that's intuition that that comes to you through another person. So for instance, somebody says to you, Alex, I know you're on this flight at four o'clock this afternoon to Austin, Texas, man, I don't think you should get on a flight. I don't know why. But just trust me, I don't think you should get on a fly and say go alright, this isn't weird. I'm gonna catch the next flight and the four o'clock fight and crashes. Right? Okay. So we've all heard of instances like that. I went back and I studied instances stuff involving 911. And going back further historically into the Titanic, you know, and there are lots of instances where where somebody comes up to somebody and goes, Don't get on that boat. Come on, you know, it's like the safest, the safest ship in the world. And they say, you know, don't get on that boat, or they're held back for some reason, you know, there's a traffic jam, you can't get to your office at 911. Or, you know, the bus that normally is on time is not on time that day, you know, there's some forms of proxy intuition where for whatever reason, intuition can't come to you. So it comes through another mechanism, often through another person. So once I started to realize that intuition wasn't this one big sort of umbrella thing that it can actually be delineated into these four forms, then it started to make a whole lot of sense to me.

Alex Ferrari 15:59
Now, how I'm when you're directing? Do you ever use that intuition? Because I know I have in your artistic endeavors.

Bill Bennett 16:14
Every moment of every day, Alex.

Alex Ferrari 16:20
You're feeling the performances, you're feeling people, but you could do it like in any aspect, even in business, even when you're in sales, even when you're speaking in front of people in any aspect of there's a sense of intuition, like you feel this, or you should do that, or in sports for God for sure, and professional, any kind of sports. So I just like I'm using directing as an example, because I know from my own experience that the always just that feels right, nope, do it again, I think I get one more, I think things like that. And I

Bill Bennett 16:53
was really interesting when I was early in my career. And when I was working as a journalist, I was working as a television journalist down in Adelaide. And I was working for the ABC. And Peter Weir at the time was making the last wave in through the South Australian Film Corporation. And so I convinced my executive producer for me to go and do a profile on Peter. And in fact that that was the start of school of quasi mentorship with Peter that lasted probably 10 to 15 years. But anyway, so I was on I was on vacation, I was on vacation, I was watching him work. And and I saw him go over to Russell Boyd, his cinematographer, and of winning the Oscar, and then sort of whispered in in Russells air, and then I noticed that they did a shot again, and under cranked or overcrowding, did the shot in slow motion. And I'm, I talked to Peter later I said, I said, What did you say to Russell Boyd? And he said, I told him that let's do this one now in slow motion. And I said, Have you planned that? And he said, No. And I said, Well, what made you do that if it was not planned? Because I thought directing was all about planning and figuring stuff out beforehand. And you know, doing it like that? And he said, No, it just felt felt like the right thing to do. And I remember that moment, and thinking, wow, you know, I thought that feature filmmaking, given that there's so much money involved, and then time, as you know, Alex is so precious on things that you can't, as a director, you can't afford to kind of wing it. You know, but he was Peter, we're doing that. And that really has to find his whole career. You know, because he has made these films really following his his spirit and his heart.

Alex Ferrari 19:00
Yeah, no, there's no I mean, he's a master and always will be. I find that so fascinating. Because even all the great artists in any, any aspect, any any art form, they feel it they they have this instinct for I mean, Jimi Hendrix, you can't teach that there's almost like something that was being like I was talking to somebody the other day about channeling. And they're like, look at Jimi Hendrix play. There's no thought, almost in the way he's playing that guitar. He's hitting those notes in a way that's almost like he's possessed. And it's almost running on pure instinct. And sometimes, you know, I even see it in my children, they'll start to draw. And I'm like, how did you learn how to do that? And like, I just felt right. Like, it's just so interesting to see how instinct plays a part. Our intuition plays a part in so many aspects of our lives, but we really don't even give it credit. We don't even give it a thought. Did you ever have that gut instinct that we all hear about? Like, oh, I shouldn't get into that business deal. I shouldn't go out on a date with that person I shouldn't like, well, we just something in my gut, it felt like literally in your stomach where it comes with. Did you ever have that prior to your to that incident? We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show.

Bill Bennett 20:32
Yeah, you know, it's interesting, Alex, because after I after I made PGS. And after I sort of got a greater understanding insight into what intuition is and how it works. I then track back through my life. And I saw some key moments where intuition had played a part. And I didn't even realize, and I'll give you an example, I said that I was starting off in med school, I was two years into into medicine. And there was one, and I was getting through the exams, okay, and I'm not great, but okay. But there was one subject that I absolutely hated. And that was biochemistry. Anyway, I had passed the year, but I got what was called a supplementary pass in biochemistry. And what a supplementary pass means is that you have some six weeks after the exams are finished, you've got to go back, and you've got to sit for the exam again, which means you got to do more study and so forth. Well, that particular year, I was a very keen serpent rider. And that particular year, I had got this brand new surfboard that, that I'd kind of developed for my particular style on my particular break. And I'd worked with the shaper to get this board absolutely perfect. Anyway, so after, after the exams leading up to the supplementary exams, on Wednesday, I went surfing, I should have been studying biochemistry, but I went surfing. And on the day that on the day that I had to sit for the exam, it was one of these freakish days where and this is the Gold Coast, right, in Queensland. It was one of these freakish, freakish days where the surf was absolutely perfect. And for some magical reason, there was no one out there, it was just like me out. And there was these 46 foot waves coming in with a slight off shore, you know, bouncing left and right. And on that particular day, me and my surfboard became one. Now this sounds pretty weird. But you know, I mean, Ayrton Senna talks about it in that wonderful documentary about just sort of becoming one with with your instrument, whatever it is, Jimi Hendrix would say the same. And me and the surfboard became one it was it was like, wherever I wanted to go on away, all I had to do was think, and the board would take me there. And but I knew that I had to get out of 12 o'clock, to sit for this exam in Brisbane at two o'clock, like 12 o'clock was the last, the very last that I could do it. So 12 o'clock, I got out of the car, I got out of the water. I went back to my car, I put this I remember time on board under the under the car. And the board was still relatively fresh, you know, the, the fiberglass was still soft, I remember that. And I remember looking down onto the back kind of ledge, you know, of the of the car, you know, the window, the window ledge thing. And there was my biochemistry textbook. And I remember looking at the textbook, and then looking at the board on the car, and then turning and looking out to the serve. And then I went, fuck this. I'm gonna serve it. I took the board off the car, and I went out surfing. And I blew off the exam and I failed the. And I knew exactly what I was doing. I knew exactly what I was doing. But that was the turning point for me in my life. You know, I then having failed the exam, I then had to figure out what the bloody hell was I going to do? You know? And I thought, Well, okay, I've done I did medicine because I thought it would please my parents, because they are both dentists. And even though they didn't put any pressure on me, it was kind of required of me to go into one of the medical professions. And it wasn't me. You know. So when I when I made that decision, that momentary decision and intuitive decision to blow off the exam and go surfing. It was a critical point in my life. And then I thought, well, I've done it for them. Now I got to do it for me. And what do I love doing I love writing. And so I went into journalism, and that changed my life.

Alex Ferrari 24:58
And all because of the intuition of Just going screw it, I'm gonna make this choice, but you knew something was telling you get back on the board?

Bill Bennett 25:07
Somebody? Yes. And in getting back on the board, it meant changing my life.

Alex Ferrari 25:14
Right? It's something, that little decision change the course of your your life, your direction might have gone, you might have gone to take the test, you might have passed it. And you might have been a miserable doctor. Yeah,

Bill Bennett 25:29
well, exactly a lot of my friends that you know, from school that did medicine, you know, they went on to become doctors, and some done really well. And some have become quite jaded and cynical. It just wasn't me, Alex, you know, and I know that I put that I put that down to my molecule, my personal guidance system saying, Bill, you're going down the right part, the wrong parts. You've got to change direction. That's what happened. You

Alex Ferrari 26:03
know, I always find the talking about your personal guidance system. I mean, I and again, I've, I've been around for a little bit, have walked around the block a couple times. Got a couple gray hairs, a couple of gray hairs now.

Bill Bennett 26:16
And it was my Yeah, I know.

Alex Ferrari 26:20
You must have children. So the as you get older, you start to look back on your life. And you just start to see, if you started looking at it as a map. You can see when we you were going in a certain direction that you were supposed to be going. doors were open things opportunities present themselves. But when you veer off, because of ego because of circumstance because of grandiose thought, whatever. Something nudges you, tries to nudge you, the more stubborn of us. Don't listen. And that nudge starts to become a push. And if that push, doesn't get listened to the sledgehammer comes out and completely does something that eradicates what you were doing for your own good. And you might have thought it's the worst thing in the world that could have happened to you at the moment. But looking back, even bad things have a way of shifting. Well, that obviously has an effect on who you are. So your experience with doing all your research and speaking to all these gurus, spiritual gurus and, and channelers and all of these mystics. what's your what's your thoughts on that whole kind of roadmap that's laid out for you because again, for me, you're born with certain set of skills. You're programmed like that, from the factory, I call it you programmed like that from the factory. So you obviously have artistic ability, writing ability. These are things that are an aid innate in you. You went down a doctor's path, you might have done okay, but that wasn't the path that you should have been on. Like, I could be an astronaut probably won't make it. Now at least, you know, but I'm not going to be an NBA player. I'm not going to be a soccer player or football player, because that's not the gifts that were given to me to walk on that certain path. So what's your feeling on that? Well

Bill Bennett 28:30
I, I firmly believe in past lives and reincarnation, and that we come in with a plan and a blueprint. You look at you look at Mozart, you know, the skills that he had at such a young age? How does that happen? I mean, there are you know, there are a number of other people and we could we could talk about as well. And I do believe that the we come in having forgotten what we've been through in our past lives, the veil comes down. I mean, Alex, you're, you're a father, I'm a father. I don't know whether you've had this experience. But when I've looked into my child's eyes, you know, two or three weeks after they're born, you see this wisdom there? That's terrifying. It's like this. Have you seen it?

Alex Ferrari 29:30
I'll tell you what, when I when I saw my children, I have twins twin girls who who have aged me beyond my years. And when I looked at them when they were born, I I was I saw something but as the months a couple of months go by, and you're in the the haze of the newborn haze that I call it the weeds when you're in those first two years is you it's a blur. It's a complete blur. But there's images I took of them. pictures I took of them where I can I can sense they're, they're old. In there's a wisdom behind it. One, one. Yeah, there's this thing about them like, Oh, this one's Yeah, oh, this one's This one's really old, like you can tell that there's just this depth behind their eyes. And as they get older, you know, that essence still stays. But I love the word veil, like you say that the coat, the heavy coat that were put on, it starts to get thicker and thicker, and you start to lose connection with that power that you had when you walked in the door.

Bill Bennett 30:44
Yeah. You know what I'm talking about? I mean, you see this with sort of almost ancient wisdom. And you wonder, where does that come from. And then as they in the few months, as I get older, that begins to fade, the veil does come down. But I'll never, I'll never forget the shock of seeing that wisdom in my children's eyes. And, you know, and so I do believe that we come in with a blueprint, with a plan with certain skills and abilities. And coming back to intuition, it's our intuitions purpose is to try and keep us on plan is to keep us on point, the number one purpose of intuition is to keep us alive, because we can't fulfill our plan unless we're alive. And then number two purpose is to, is to try and guide us and as you said, before nudges. To keep on our paths, because invariably, we go on and off the path. But it's, it's those people that listen to their intuition. And more importantly, trusted the, the stay on their path, and I believe, end up living happy, fulfilled lives, you know, in whatever it is that that might be. So you saw the movie PGS. And in that film, I outlined five steps for accessing your intuition, Stop, listen, trust and follow. So to be in tune with your intuition, you've got to stop. You know, you've got to get rid of distractions, whatever, in whatever you know, that might just be walking through nature, walking through a park, walking through a forest, or, you know, sitting on a rock looking at the sea, or you know, you can meditate in a cave or whatever, but you first you got to stop, then you've got to listen to those intuitive pings that are coming at you. Then you've got to ask, you know, it's one of one of the things that we don't do often enough is we don't ask for help. And by us, I mean, ask spirit, ask for guidance, you know, in prayer, or meditation, or just simply, you know, before you go to bed, just go can you please solve this, this problem for me? And in the morning, in the morning, you know, before consciousness really kicks in and sort of semi halfway state. If you ask nine times out of 10, the answer is going to be there in the morning before you full awakeness comes in.

Alex Ferrari 33:35
It's so it's so funny, because I meditate. I'm a heavy meditator and I always sometimes when I have problems or issues in my life or questions in my life, I'll ask the question before the meditation. And many times the answer comes to me in my meditations, it's pretty fascinating to be able to be done, but I never forgot the day I wrote this in my first book. I was about to go bankrupt. I was had many financial rough financial dealings when I was in my 20s. I almost made a movie $20 million movie for the mafia and just destroyed my my, my energy, my career, you know, met the biggest movie stars in the world at the time. It was a really dark, dark time for me. And I was about to sign the paperwork of going bankrupt, like the bankruptcy paperwork. About two days, I was two days away, and I literally yelled out to the universe. I said, Hey, I want to pay my debts. But I can't do it alone. I need some help. I'll work hard, but I need some help. I was completely lost. I had gone I would imagine gone off the path a bit. The next day, my first boss ever, who I did an internship with in a commercial production house in Florida. Calls me he goes, Hey, I hear they're looking for an editor. Up in up in northern northern Florida. I gave him your number, they're waiting for your call. So I call them when I put the guy grabbed the VHS of my reel. I went up there, got the job. And within a year, I was out of the I was completely out of debt. And I was able to get myself back on my feet. But it was so remarkable. You look back in those days, and you go, what are the chances? He didn't know I was in trouble. He had no idea that I was in financial trouble. I hadn't talked to them in three years, four years. And it just came like that. So I like I love what you say asking for help. If you're honest and really true about what you're asking for, and it's not coming from a place of ego, or want or I need a Ferrari, I need a Lamborghini. Yeah, that's not coming, guys. But if you truly ask for help, authentic help, I think it does come to

Bill Bennett 36:05
you. And that's, that's an extraordinary story, Alex, and it's it's one. I've heard these stories quite a bit, as you probably have, as well, you know, from the various people that you've interviewed. And you've got to ask for what's going on here. And the cynic people listening to this will say, well, that's just coincidence. I'm sorry. It's

Alex Ferrari 36:30
maybe one time, if it just keeps happening throughout your life, you just like, come on.

Bill Bennett 36:36
So here's the thing, right? I've screened the movie around and I do q&a Is and people people say, Well, how do you develop intuition. And I say a good way of doing it is and this comes down to asking, is packing, asked for the best pack. And so you know, people talking about the packing Angel, and so forth. So, so what I've done is I have developed this mechanism, I don't fully understand it. Asking for the perfect Park and the perfect Park always arrives, always arrives. Like I remember going to a major shopping mall, on Christmas Eve. And then particularly Christmas Eve was on a Saturday. And I needed to get a present from this one particular part of the department store. Now, Christmas Eve in the shopping mall was just absolutely maniacal. And I wanna, I want the perfect part, right opposite the front entrance to go to this store. And I drive around and of course, you know, there's no park anywhere like no park anywhere. I'm going no, come on, come on, give it give it up, give it up. And as I'm approaching the section of the of the car park with the front entrance to the stories, I see these brake lights come on. And then this car pulls out and pulls out in such a way that I'm the only person who can get this park. Like there's a line of cars behind me searching for car parks as well. But I'm the only person I'm right there beside this car as it pulls out. Now, how does that happen? Right? How does that happen? And if you ask then, and like you say, if you if you ask for something that's that's in your highest good, I mean, what I put it down this whole thing about parking, what I put it down to is spirit saying, Bill, we're doing this to show you that it works. You know, we're doing this, we're doing this as a bit of a kind of a game, just to show you that you can get on a podcast, you know, with Alex and talking about this shit and speak with some level of authority. You know, that's that's what I think is going on. It's not Gee, Bill, you know, you need to be rewarded by having this perfect Park man. It's not that it's like I firmly believe it's the universe saying we're showing you that we are working for you. And for the biggest things that you asked for things that are in your highest good. We're here for you. But first, you've got to ask.

Alex Ferrari 39:30
You know, I'll tell you there was when I was younger, there was this this time where I was about to do a business deal. And I was about to I literally was going to the bank to get the check, the cashier's check. And every every cell in my body was yelling. Don't do it. Every cell I mean I had almost a sickness in my stomach. That's how strong this feeling was. But it was so young. I was in my early 20s And I was I guess my fear of not doing the deal overpowered the intuition. But I never forgot the feeling. It was kind of like, someone was yelling at me, don't do this. Don't go down, don't drop the money on this. And I did. And of course, it was a horrendous failure. And it was a lesson learned. That was the first time I needed to learn the lesson. When something like that happens, you better listen. You better because next time it's it could be a few $1,000 Now, but it could be your life. It could be a truck hitting you. Yeah. Did you feel it? Was a just a voice? Or did you feel something in your body in a diet or anything else? We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show.

Bill Bennett 40:57
No, it was just it was just a voice. But when it came in a second time, I had, I had an immediate kind of sense that I really had to take this seriously. And I can't explain that it was just like, okay, you know, this, you, you got to do something here. And that's why I slowed down. I mean, literally, if I hadn't slowed down, I tried to just slam straight in straight in.

Alex Ferrari 41:26
And you wouldn't have made it. You wouldn't have made that that. That would have been down with the end of it. Yeah, yeah. So let me ask you a question. What is divine timing?

Bill Bennett 41:42
Good question for me at the moment. divine timing. Coming back to this blueprint, we're impatient people. We want to species. We're an

Alex Ferrari 41:53
impatient species. It's a general state. In the West, in the West, we're horrible. All Western countries are like I need now Now. Now. It's gotten worse with time. Now we have literally every every bit of knowledge ever at the at a couple keystrokes. It's insane.

Bill Bennett 42:10
Yeah, absolutely insane. But spirit doesn't work that way. The universe doesn't work that way, the you know, time, space and time doesn't exist in in a world of spirit. And divine timing is the timing, it's right for them not for you. In the end, it will be right for you, because what's right for them will be right for you. But I have to give you an exact example at the moment. I've written a new book. And all indications are that this book is going to work. But I'm looking around for a publisher. And I have sent the manuscript out to a number of people. And I've got rejections. And invariably, the rejections have been just based on my pitch, not not, not not having read the manuscript. And I'm dreadful at pitches. Absolutely.

Alex Ferrari 43:10
Trust me, directors, sometimes they're just not that good in the room.

Bill Bennett 43:14
That's the hardest, the hardest thing, the hardest thing I ever, you know, when you used to write postcards, I would find it impossible to write a postcard. I'm dripping with pigeons. Anyway, so I'm right at this moment, at this point where I just say, Ryan, I've got to trust, I've got to trust in divine timing, I've got to try to trust that the right people come along, for the right reasons to do the right thing. And whereas before, I would have been, like crawling up the wall, you know, and I would have would have been, you know, I would have been, like, I've got I've got a couple of options with this book. I can get published. But I know that it probably won't be the right, the right way for the book to get out there. You know, so I do have a couple of options, but I'm not exploring them. And because I'm trusting in divine timing, that the right people will come because the book has to be handled the right way. has to it has to get into the right hands. And I got a relationship with Penguin Random House, I published a series of wine novels that I've that I've written, but they're they're not they're not the right publishers for this. And so, so yeah, you know, I'm going through that at the moment and, and divine timing is so terribly important because you've just got to learn to push your impatience away. You Don't just put it into a little box and just say no, you got to trust.

Alex Ferrari 45:04
Well, I'll tell you, I'll tell you what I mean. I've been I was very impatient as a young man. I wanted everything now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now, why hasn't this happened? Why hasn't that happened? And everyone listening, every director goes through this, these steps as they as they as they get older. If you're 23, you're like, Oh, my God, Orson Welles, this Citizen Kane at 23, I'm a failure. When you hit 27, oh, my god, Steven Spielberg made Jaws at 27. I'm a failure. You're constantly with this movies, these ridiculous land these markers on the road that you tried to do. But But I was very impatient. And as I've gotten older, I've realized that I could either be impatient, which does nothing. No one cares. All you do is create stress for yourself. Or you allow the universe to unfold itself the way it's supposed to be and trust in the path. And the moment I started to trust in the path, the doors open, things started happening. And sure do I want things to happen faster? I think it's an innate issue. Like you want to eat that meal faster, you want to get to that thing faster, you want to have this opportunity presented so faster. But there's a perfection in the plan that knows when you're ready and when you're not ready. So if in give you an example of my show, if I had the pleasure of speaking to Oliver Stone on my show, if he would have showed up. As my second guest, I was not ready to handle an Oliver Stone. As an as a guest, I just didn't have the skill set wasn't ready, it would have been wasted. No one would have probably heard it because no one knew who I was. But when he showed up, I had already been doing it five years. And it was a perfect divine timing. Because the moment he'll I was ready for him. Barely. I was ready for him. But I had such a wealth of catalogue that I had an audience ready to listen to it. And then then that opened doors to hundreds of other amazing guests that I was able to get afterwards. But it was perfect timing. So as much as I might want a Steven Spielberg or Coppola or Scorsese to show up right now. It might not be the moment for and I have to accept that there's a perfection in the wait. And I've just from my own walking the path, I've discovered that. I'm assuming that's the same for you.

Bill Bennett 47:45
It is the same and I think I think people got to understand that. Waiting and understanding divine timing doesn't mean that you have to be inactive or pass suit. Oh, absolutely. You're right. I'm God helps those who help themselves. And, you know, you still have to do the work. But you have to be incredibly discerning in, in where where you're getting stuff from, you know, and once again, it comes down to really listening and trusting your intuition on these things. Because any end that's, that's your best friend. You know, that's your, that's your the best mechanism. If you can develop that, that facility and get to a point where you trust it. So much of your life is going to end up so much easier.

Alex Ferrari 48:46
Can you talk about the difference between the rational voice and the Intuit intuitive voice?

Bill Bennett 48:52
Yeah, the rational voice always has an agenda. Intuitive voice doesn't.

Alex Ferrari 48:59
Very, very good. So when you say the rational voice you mean, the voice of the mind. It's a it's a cognitive voice in your mind.

Bill Bennett 49:09
And often, when I say it's got an agenda, often the agenda is based in fear. Whereas the intuitive voice is pure and fearless. And doesn't doesn't have anything attached to it. And also one of the things that I've learned with making this film is the notion first thought best thought first thought person so you first voice the first voice you hear is is your intuitive voice. You know it comes out of nowhere, you know, coming back to the definition intuition is a sudden, unexplained inside a sudden unexplained inside her first thought best thought what happens is we have our first thought Yeah, that's that's that's the best That's cool. So then our rational mind kicks in, oh, no, I'm really can't do that because it's probably going to cost me too much. Or I might, you know, people might think I'm an idiot, or my wife's gonna hate me if I do this or after the first thought and rational mind then starts to chip away at it. And then before we realize that we've done 180 agree about phase, you know, and we've totally dismissed our first thought when going with our rational thought, and we screw it up.

Alex Ferrari 50:31
We tend to do that, don't we tend to do that all the time. It's that you if you if you can tune yourself into accepting the first instinct that you have, if it's coming from that good place, oh, my god, life becomes so much easier because you you talk yourself out of everything, because your mind is there to protect you. And that's why it's always afraid because fear allows you to be protected, because there's a tiger around the corner that's going to eat you. And that worked really great when we were in the savanna but not so much now.

Bill Bennett 51:05
Bring up bringing on fan, Alex, you know that I'm making a film on fear of falling? Yeah,

Alex Ferrari 51:10
I was I was I was gonna ask you about your new project facing fears. How's that going?

Bill Bennett 51:15
It's nearing completion, we should be finished editing, probably by the end of August, I'm hoping that will be almost six months editing. Which, you know, for you as a filmmaker, you'll know, it's a long time

Alex Ferrari 51:29
and you've got to pray hours and hours of interviews and

Bill Bennett 51:34
70 hours or so it's gonna follow the same template as PTS but, but it's been really really, really interesting because just in the same way that I didn't know anything really about intuition. When I went into that movie, I didn't know anything about fear, really, when I went into making facing fear. And so we've got people like Dr. Joe Dispenza, Bruce Lipton, Carolyn mace again. Lee cow who, channel Sukhram, Paul Selig, you know, so we got some wonderful people. We've also got some combat veterans, you know, I've got I've got a guy who was Lieutenant Colonel in the, in the rangers and becoming a mercenary. And, you know, we've got a whole whole variety of different people. But, you know, people will talk about Franklin D Rose Roosevelt's thing, the only thing you have to fear is fear itself. And what I've discovered in the making of the film is that that's a complete and utter nonsense, you don't need to fear feel fear, fear you. In fact, if you befriend fear, and in a way personalized fear, so that it becomes a buddy that you can talk to, you know, then you can work with fear to work out a whole lot of stuff. So that it doesn't become this demon. It becomes in fact, a friend of yours that you can walk with ARM and ARM to a better future.

Alex Ferrari 53:10
Yeah, I've I mean, look, fear, like I was saying before, and from my studies of my my hobbies, neuroscience, I'd love lists, I love reading a Dr. Joe and, and Bruce Lipton, and they've taught me so much about the the mind and in fear in general, and the unconscious mind and all these kinds of things. It's, it's fascinating, because fear rules us fear controls every, almost every aspect of our lives, marketing, I mean, you've done commercial spots, marketing is based on fear, if you don't wear this, you're not gonna be cool, you don't do this, you're not going to be cool, you're not going to be liked, you're not going to be accepted. You're not going to have the girl or the guy. It's all based around fear. And when you have a better connection with your inner strength in your, your higher self, those things start to wear to fall away. I don't have as much fear as I used to in life. Maybe it's because of the show, maybe because I get to talk to you know, amazing individuals like yourself about topics that are as deep as the ocean is wide. I mean, these are these, I mean, I asked questions in these in these shows that are so profound. And they make you start thinking about life differently. Which Which brings me to another question you are in PGS. You got to travel the world. You were in front of and spoke to and spend time with mystics, spiritual masters, yogi's, what is it? What was it like being in the presence of those kind of people? What kind of energy is been around because like we've said before, you've been a film director, you've worked around the world. You've met so many people in your lifetime I can only imagine just crew alone. You haven't sense of people, generally speaking, what was it like being in their presence? What was the energy? What was the feeling in general?

Bill Bennett 55:08
And that's interesting. You asked that question. I had the privilege of spending some time with the Indian equivalent of the Dalai Lama, the Hindu equivalent of the Dalai Lama, a very holy man called Pooja Swamiji. She didn't earn it, he operates out of the Parmarth Nick Catan ashram in Rishikesh this this man is a holy man like I say he is He's regarded the Hindu Quran as Dalai Lama in His presence. You understand you're in the presence of a holy man. I met the prince of Bhutan, and he's he's an own And same deal. A devout Buddhist. Yeah. You know, prior to making the film, I'm taking taken kind of journalistic cynicism to people who channel you know, people, people such as you know, poor spelling and so forth. But I have now having an James has become a friend Paul Selig has become a friend Lee County has become a friend. I'm very privileged to be able to say that. And these people are real. You know, they're absolutely dead set real. I have seen James work. I've seen people work. I've seen Lee work. You can't make this stuff up.

Alex Ferrari 56:46
It's, it's, I mean, I had Paul on the show. And, oh, Paul's wonderful. And I love him because he is almost almost as I will say, disdain for what he kind of just like, This is ridiculous. Like, why are

Bill Bennett 57:04
you still reluctant? Even though he is

Alex Ferrari 57:07
he is so reluctant to? I told him that on the show, like you don't even seem like because I challenged the things that come out of my mouth. I'm like, that doesn't make any sense. I had Darryl Anka, who channels Bashar, he's actually a dear friend of mine is a filmmaker as well. And he's been doing it for 40 years now. He's been channeling and the stuff that he says and how he does it, because I've seen him do it. I just tell people like, he's probably the most incredible improv player I've ever seen in my life. If he's not channeling, same thing with Paul, same thing with Lee, you look at their work, and you just like there's two things I always say when that when I talk to skeptics about channeling and I don't care if you believe it or not, it's up to you. That's completely in your ball game. One is what they're saying mean anything to you? Is it connecting with you in one way, shape, or form spiritually? Does it make sense to intellectually? If it does, who cares? How it gets to? One, two? I just can't the amount of information that flies out of them at one time. I use hours at a time hours something Paul will just hours, and especially Paul's, have you even good Paul, Rick repeats himself and does does a thing with his head. He repeats himself and he whispers himself and then says it out loud whispers himself says that led to know how I tried doing that. Mentally so impossible to do. So something's going on. Something's gone.

Bill Bennett 58:39
Well, you know, I mean, you look at Paul, and you look at, say, the county channels for crimes when I've seen them live. And I've sat across the dinner tables with Paul and we converse socially. And I've asked him a question. He said, Let me check in with the guy and then he's given me Give me the gentle answer. But you look and say, Okay, so let's take Paul, what he will do is, in his early years, you might, you might know that he would send his his audio recordings to Victoria, on the west coast, Corinne Berkeley, and she would then type them up, not make no make any changes to them, and then send them back to Paul so that they can proofread and so forth. The level of sophistication of thought that comes through his channelings and through Blue cow Shandling's is mind boggling, mind boggling. And I mean, you've seen him, he will do a monologue for 20 minutes, 30 minutes. That if you sat down and wrote it, and wrote something that had that level of sophistication and complexity of thought it would take you god knows how long now, Alex, you're dramatists, right? You're a director. As a mind, you know, performance. Yes, you now you see these guys, you know, no actor could pull it off.

Alex Ferrari 1:00:20
Denzel Washington could sit there and maybe do a 15 minute monologue in that way, you would be seeing him exhausted at the end of it. And he, you couldn't keep them going for an hour or two, it's, it's almost unhuman, to be able to do that, at that level again, and again and again. And again, it you know, and I guess,

Bill Bennett 1:00:41
Now in front of live audiences. I mean, like, here's, here's, here's the thing, if, if it was all scripted on an auto queue, right, right. Now, once again, you are, you are a director, and you understand performance, right? If you saw somebody, you know, when somebody's reading something off an autocue. Or if they've got some, you know, implant in their ear. And they like doing that, you know, that you can see in that.

Alex Ferrari 1:01:08
The speed that they that Paul talks, or Paul's a unique one, because of the whispering to himself. So he's repeating the lines to himself, which makes, I can't even I tried literally just tried to do it with a few words, and it's so difficult, and he does it for hours at a time live. So it's like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. So even if even if you had someone speaking, you couldn't get it in the ear, processed and out the mouth at that speed so quickly. So again, even if you're skeptic, again, doesn't make sense to you, does it connect with you? And secondly, how on God's green earth are these guys doing it? Because you can send the you and I are unique, because we have, we've worked with actors, you know, at the highest levels, and you look at them, and you just like, I know, what performance is? This? This isn't performance. This is just too hard. It's just difficult.

Bill Bennett 1:02:03
So then that begs the question, Alex, where does this come from? And that's the big question.

Alex Ferrari 1:02:10
That's the thing, that's the thing. I mean, I've had the pleasure on the show to talk to near death, experiencers and channelers, and mystics and holy men. And I just keep coming back to the same thing that there is something out there guiding us, in all the answers that we look for are within ourselves, if we're able to tear down the meatsuit, the conditioning, the all the stuff that's been piled on to us that we lose that little innocence of that child, that that that depth of wisdom that you were talking about, when you looked into your child, your children's eyes, we forget that. So if we can find a way to cut through that, and I, for me, it's meditation, meditation is the thing that allows me to quiet everything. And then I call it dipping the toe in the universe, where when you go into deep meditation, you touch it for a second you, you're in there for a minute. And when you come out, you're just like, in a bliss. And it's, it's such a, it takes time to get to that place. So I can only imagine what Buddhist monks meditate eight hours a day feel like, and why they're like, I don't need x box, I don't need a call, I don't need new clothes, I don't need any of that I'm in bliss. And what we do out here is so many times we're looking for that bliss, and physical objects which at its best to give it to us for a minute or two. It's not sustainable. You can buy the biggest mansion in the world at a certain point. Okay, you could be you could drive a Ferrari, brand new Ferrari off and you can enjoy it and it'll be a fun time. Then, like, it's limited, it's, you know, it's at a certain point, he just doesn't fill your bucket anymore. But the only thing has filled my personal bucket is being able to go inward. Because that's sustainable. I mean, that Rahm das said it best. He's like, I took trips with LSD and, and silo silo, you know, which one I'm talking about, and all these kinds of drugs and psychedelics. And I got there for a minute, and I would play it, I would, and then I would go, and I was looking to be in that place. And that's when he met the raw Rashi that he's like, Oh, I found a being who was high all the time, who was in that sense of ecstasy all the time, and just being and he that's what he was searching for. So that's, that's my answer to that question long, quite a long answer to the question.

Bill Bennett 1:04:34
Paul talks about the upper room and you know, in his in his later books, and about, you know, when I asked him about fear, and about how, how you how best to manage fear, he said, raise your vibrations, because fear can operate at a higher vibrational level. Fear exists in the lower vibrations. So if you're able to raise your vibrations, you step out of fear. If you re I'm not sure whether Paul says this or not, but basically, the way spirit connects with you is your guides will lower their vibrations to a certain extent. If you're able to raise your by vibrations, so you're within reaching this distance of them. Like you say, probably the best way to do that is through meditation.

Alex Ferrari 1:05:34
Absolutely. And I'm gonna ask you a couple questions I've asked, I asked all my guests, what is your mission in this life?

Bill Bennett 1:05:47
To be curious.

Alex Ferrari 1:05:51
And what is the ultimate purpose of life?

Bill Bennett 1:05:59
To find out who you are,

Alex Ferrari 1:06:02
Who you truly are. Now, where can people find out more about you? Watch the movie, read the book and see the other things you're working on?

Bill Bennett 1:06:12
Um, oh, just google me.

Alex Ferrari 1:06:18
Assuming you have a website,

Bill Bennett 1:06:19
I got I got a website, my name Bill, Billbennett.com.au. Au as for Australia, I'm on Facebook. That's probably where I hang out most. Instagram. Alex, I'm driven marketing myself, man.

Alex Ferrari 1:06:39
You're not good at the pitch you're not good at the pitch . You're not good at the pitch. I'll make sure to put all that information in the show notes. Bill, it's been an absolute pleasure and honor speaking to you, my friend, thank you for making this film. It is a unique, a unique angle on something that really is never talked about. It's something we all have experienced in one way shape, or form. But it's rarely even spoken about. I don't think there was a there might have been other books about this specifically. I know there hasn't been a movie about it. So I appreciate that you did all the work and put it out there for people to hopefully connect to their intuition and their inner voice a little bit easier now. So I appreciate you my friend.

Bill Bennett 1:07:18
Thanks, Alex. Um, it's, it hasn't been an interview. It's been a chat It's been wonderful. Thank you.