Have you ever faced something so shattering,
a sudden crash or a devastating loss? A moment
where the ground literally disappears beneath
you and wondered how you could ever possibly
come back. Our guest today knows that feeling
intimately. We're talking about trauma, not just
as a concept, but as a real force that can break
us and incredibly make us. Today, we're sitting
down with Jeff. Razzly, if I'm saying it correctly,
an author, a Himalayan expedition leader, and
a dedicated humanitarian. Jeff is a survivor
who navigated intense PTSD following a crippling
motorcycle wreck in Mexico and a fatal avalanche
in Nepal. His journey isn't about surviving those
high -stake moments. It's about what he learned
on the other side. This conversation is... anyone
who's ever felt broken and needs a guide on finding
their way back to purpose. So we're going to
dive right in. This is Keeping It Real on Purpose,
and I am Edna White, your host. And I welcome
my guest, Jeff Rasley, to the show. Thank you,
Edna. It's very good to be with you. Yeah, you
too. So I'm really excited because... I, when
I was reading your bio is like, man, I got to
see if this guy looks like, well, sorry, sorry
to disappoint you. All of this, I has, oh man,
I got to see this guy because he's, he's got
some strength and some angels around him, you
know, and just really define the odds. That's
the word to find the odds. So, um, so tell us
about, you know, how you show up in the world?
Because I know some of it, but the audience doesn't
know. Well, currently, I'm a writer. I've published
17 books, I think about 90 articles. So that's
sort of my primary focus now. I practiced law
for 30 years. Then I taught a class on philanthropy
at Marion University and Butler University here
in Indianapolis where I live. And I've been married
to the same woman for 50 years, Alicia. We were
college sweethearts at the University of Chicago.
And we had two grown kids. poppy cat who's wandering
around, sticks her tail where the camera can
see her. That's wonderful. Jeffrey, your life
has included two life -altering events, the motorcycle
wreck in Mexico and the avalanche in Nepal. Most
people can't even imagine that level of crisis.
in this immediate aftermath of either of those
crises, what was the first thought or feeling
that signaled this was more than just a bad day?
Well, yeah, so I was 19 when I was on a motorcycle
with a passenger on the back who I had actually
just met that day. down in Mazatlan, Mexico and
we were riding into town from a camp and we came
to a cross street. I looked both ways, started
to cross and then there was just an explosion
and I went flying through the air and we had
been T -boned by a car. I flew over the handlebars,
landed on all fours, sort of cat -like. And my
only injuries were I cracked my radius forearm
and broke my shoulder. But my passenger, a wonderful
guy named Bob Dell, who had... taking my buddy,
Tim Cosnop, who he and I had ridden over 4 ,000
miles together from Indiana down through Mexico.
But Bob and his friend, Gene, took us in. We're
kind of looking out for us because Tim's motorcycle
was stolen that day. So within a matter of hours,
my riding partner's motorcycle was stolen with
everything, his pack, his clothes, his money.
And then I was hit and my motorcycle was wrecked.
And Bob was really very seriously injured. And
we were taken to a hospital. But you asked what
was my immediate reaction. I was in shock, I
mean, medical, a state of shock, but I saw Bob
in the street with bones sticking out from his
shoulder and his hip. And I just started yelling
for an ambulance, you know, ambulance, ambulance,
which eventually an ambulance came and we were
taken to a hospital. Right. Yeah, that's tough.
That's really tough. There's a lot of like, I
know I've been in a car accident and I didn't
even think about PTSD from after it, but I know
that there's an amount of PTSD that you experienced.
Can you talk about that? Yeah, it actually took
quite a while because I was in survival mode
for for some time because after the crash, Bob
and I were in the hospital and we were under
arrest. There was an armed guard sitting at our
doorway in the hospital room 24 hours a day.
And Bob came out of emergency surgery. and was
crying and moaning and was obviously in terrible
pain. And I kept asking the guard to go get a
doctor because my friend needed, you know, help
needed to be looked at because he was in so much
pain. And the the guard, the policeman wouldn't
let me and he wouldn't do it. So eventually.
I knocked him down and jumped over him and ran
out and found a doctor. And they came back and
gave Bob more Demerol to treat the pain. But
then, you know, it was a complicated situation
to get out of the hospital and get out of the
country. But eventually. We did. And then Tim
and I hitchhiked home to Indiana from California.
How far? How far was? OK. OK. Yeah. So, you know,
2000 miles. So we were about 750 miles down in
Mazatlan from the California border. And I had
relatives and uncle and cousins in the L .A.
area. So we we took a train up there. But then
we Hitchhiked home because we were 19 year olds.
We were determined to get home on our own power
our own power, but Heard your dog and so anyway,
so we hitchhiked home and Again, it was just
like I'm in survival mode. This isn't really
affecting me and then After I was home I was
working in a factory before I went back to school
at the University of Chicago and I had a steel
pin in my shoulder and my arm was in a cast and
then a sling. And it was, you know, still just,
you know, surviving that. And then it wasn't
really until I was back in school, I started
waking up every night, completely covered in
sweat, just. Wow. total body sweat. And, you
know, at first I didn't know what was going on.
I mean, I'd never experienced this before. But
eventually I kept having, you know, kind of reliving
the crash and seeing Bob with the bones sticking
out of his hip and his shoulder. We stayed in
contact and wrote each other and talked on the
phone. We eventually, over the years, lost contact.
I don't know what's happened to him. But he was
crippled. He was going to walk with a limp at
best the rest of his life. even though the woman
who hit us was eventually also arrested and was
determined by the local prosecutor that it was
her fault. You know, I felt this really terrible
guilt that this was the first time Bob had ever
been on a motorcycle. He asked me to give him
a ride and take, you know, ride him into town.
And then that happened. So it was you know for
a 19 year old it was just hard to live with yeah,
and that the the sweats Lasted for about nine
months basically through the school year and
then that next summer My wife and I got married
and I don't know I don't know if I should give
her credit, but it seems like eventually over
the course of that next year, I mean, they continued
even after we were married for a while, but it
became, you know, less and less often, more time
would go on. And so it was, you know, maybe once
a week and then eventually it stopped. Wow. Wow.
You experienced some significant PTSD from. from
that and I know maybe even Bob probably, right?
So I know it seemed like the way you're telling
me it's like a relentless cycle and even it was
great, joyous things happening, you still experience
this. Is there, when was the time that you saw
that small crack of light that you could start
to kind of dig out of that survival mode? Yeah,
well, you know, when I was in that kind of the
survival mode. It was all about just sort of,
I can kind of equate it to doing trucking and
mountaineering where, you know, the physical
challenge is so great that you just focus on
your next step, you know, put that one foot in
front of the other. And you just you keep going
by taking the next step, next step, next step.
And I think that's sort of how I was living until
the kind of the night sweats and the nightmares
sort of took me out of that. And I had to start
confronting what had happened as opposed to just
focusing on that next step and to be more introspective
and just really look down deeply into not only
what happened, but how I felt about it, how it
affected Bob, and that I had to take some responsibility
for that and what happened to me. And eventually
it was something like, OK, I can live with that.
It happened. There's nothing I can't change it.
So now I'm going to just go back to Enjoying
life. Yeah, that's good. Did you ever incorporate
writing or anything like that into into that
as you were going through survival mode or no?
Well, I actually I wrote my BA paper So two and
a half years later about that experience. My
advisor was very kind of flexible, liberal guy.
And so I was supposed to write a paper about
philosophy. And so what I did is I got permission
to start a novel. And the novel was based on
my motorcycle experience with my Buddy Tim. And
so it was really it was I called it a novel,
but it was really a memoir. And I just I started
writing about that entire experience. And yeah,
so yeah, so I did. I really, you know, relived
it through writing it out. Well, that's good.
That's good, because I know a lot of audience
audience. they write, or they're interested in
writing, or they're book readers. So it's so
important to kind of see if that even helped.
Because I know for me, coming out of my trauma,
writing helped a lot. I mean, putting it down
on paper and getting it out of you is so liberating.
And it kind of frees you up to the next step,
as you were saying, to the next step. What's
the next thing? So that was really good. So you
led expeditions in the Himalayas, and you run
a humanitarian work like the Basa Village Foundation.
You guide people through intense risks. How do
you personally experience with the trauma that
you had, change your approach to leading other
people? Well, so I had been I started going to
Nepal in 1995 and had done a couple mountaineering
expeditions, but not as a leader. And on the
third mountaineering expedition, when we were
trekking out from the mountain. climbing experiences
over. We're just trekking out to get back to
Lukla village, which is high up in the mountains
and it's an airstrip and we're going to fly back
to Kathmandu. And there had been avalanches all
the time that we were up in the mountains this
time. And, you know, but they'd been in the distance
and wasn't really dangerous for us. And we were
going. across this very high pass. It was 15
,000 feet high, but compared to a 22 ,000 foot
high mountain, no big deal. We're just getting
through it. But the snow had gotten really, really
deep, and it was thigh high as we were going
across this pass. And what happens when there's
a lot of snow If there was warm weather before
that, which there was, then there's this sort
of division. There's the soft, where it's warm.
and the snow is piled up on top of that and it
can become dangerous because this snow up here
can because of that difference in the layer can
start falling off on a steep incline and turn
into an avalanche. So that's exactly what happened
and above us actually on a higher ridge were
three Nepali porters. And they weren't the porters
from our group, but they were porters from another
climbing team. And we heard this roar and immediately
knew the sound. This was an avalanche and it
was up above us. And so there were four of us,
our guide and then our three climbers. And we
just started running. are actually four climbers.
So there were five of us. So we just started
running down the incline down the mountainside.
And by the time the avalanche got to us, it was
just what we call spin drift. It was just like
you're inside a blizzard. You know, just sleet
and snow, but, you know, no boulders, no, you
know, flying rocks, nothing that's really going
to hurt you, so you can't really see because
it's just so thick. But so we got down to the
bottom of this mountainside and the three porters
that we had seen up above us before were just
gone. We didn't know what happened to them. But
we found out later that they had been killed.
They were wiped out by the avalanche and the
avalanche separated us from the from our porters
who were carrying all of our heavy baggage, the
tents and cooking supplies, all that kind of
stuff. We just we had just our own backpacks
with our own gear. And so then So we're separated
from them. The avalanche is blocked. So they
can't get to us. We can't get to them. And our
guide decided we should just go on to Lukla.
So the five of us, the four climbers, four Westerners,
and the guide. We had to cross three streams
to get to Lucla and each stream was getting higher
and higher. So like the first one was ankle deep.
Next one was knee deep. The next one was thigh
deep. But we made it to Lucla. We were soaked
and freezing. But we were there. We were safe.
And we were staying at a lodge. And so our guide
went back to try to get to our porters. And so
he's gone. He said, you know, just stay here,
get warm, get fed, you know, take care of yourself.
So we're doing that. And the woman who runs the
lodge in Nepal, you call them Didi, which means
big sister. Didi. was looking out for us and
then she comes to us that evening and she's very
upset and what's happened is her brother was
on a flight flying in from Kathmandu to Lukla
and the plane crashed and it turned out that
everybody in that plane was killed including
her brother. But at first, you know, we don't
know what's happened to them. We don't know what's
happened to our porters. So we wait all night
long and eventually late in the next day. The
good news is our guide Seth comes back with our
porters. He had to carry one of them because
he was had severe frostbite. But they made it
back, brought all of the tents and all the gear
with them. They were soaking wet because by the
time they got to the river, it was neck high
and Seth had to create like a rope bridge and
he had to go back and forth. And he was just
amazing. I mean, amazing, courageous, strong
guy. What lessons about fear do you now pass
on to the leaders, though? Out of all that you've
done now, what lesson about fear do you pass
on to leaders? Well, I would say perseverance.
If you're afraid of something, you just look
it in the eye. and face it down and go on. And
then, you know, that sort of back into the survival
mode of next step. Just take that next step.
Yeah. You're now a prolific author. It seems
you repurposed a lot of the pain and you transform
a lot of the chaotic past into purposeful communication
after writing all those books and all those papers.
For listeners who are currently struggling through
their own wreckage right now, what's the most
crucial step you took successfully to find meaning
or purpose after those disasters? Well, it took
a long time, I suppose, to reach this understanding.
But eventually, it occurred to me that Living
your life is like creating a work of art. And
so every day you are adding to that work of art.
And as an artist, you want to make it beautiful.
And so the actual the banner on my website is
live your life like it's a work of art and make
it beautiful. Thank you. I mean, that's sort
of the fundamental philosophy that I try to live
by. Yeah, that's beautiful. I like that. Are
you working on anything right now? Yeah, I'm
actually working on two projects. One is with
my wife. During COVID, we started visiting small
towns all over Indiana, and we've been to over
250 of them. Wow. And we research each town,
take photographs, do a little post in Facebook
about each town, but we're compiling it very
slowly into a book about small town Indiana.
And then I'm writing an auto fiction. meaning
a novel based on real experience, which is I
was a law clerk for a guy in my senior year in
law school who was the hottest criminal defense
attorney in the Midwest. And he handled a number
of high profile criminal cases. And it was fascinating
to work for him, but it's also a tragic story
because he went from being this you know, high
profile, he was written up in Playboy magazine
and things like that to getting involved in cocaine,
ended up losing his law license, going bankrupt
and fleeing the country. So it's kind of the
rise and fall story based on him, but it's fictionalized.
Yeah, you know, they say a little fiction is
always a little non -fiction in there. Just a
little bit. Yeah. Nowadays, can we tell the difference
between - Right. I don't think so. Right. That's
right. That's right. Listen, Jeff, we've been
talking with you, your incredible story, and
I want to thank you for that turning tragedy
into transformation. What you share with us today
is resilience. isn't something that you're born
with. It's something you build in the aftermath
of being broken. And I like that. I like that
your story and I know your journey will prove
special to those in the audience and even to
end their own trauma and to see it in a different
light. Like you said, take your life and create
it like it's a work of art. You know, and that's
a great lesson all in itself. Is there one thing
that you could tell our audience who is struggling
right now with trauma or feel broken and what
you could tell them? One last thing. OK, yeah,
you will live through it. You will live through
it. You just take that next step and create your
life like it is a work of art because it can
be beautiful. Awesome, that's right. So go find
Jeff's 17 books and his incredible, humanitarian
work with Bassa Village Foundation. I believe
you could just find him by just writing his name.
Google him, Jeff Rasley. All right, audience,
I want to thank you for being here today, hearing
this incredible story. And I know that there's
more to come when we talk about Jeff Rasley.
Bye for now.