Given a 1% Chance to Live – Matt Long’s Incredible Survival Story

Would You Go Through Your Worst Pain Again? Imagine facing an event so catastrophic that doctors give you a 1% chance to live. Now, imagine coming out the other side not only surviving but running a marathon just three years later. That’s the reality of today’s guest, Matt Long. Matt was a firefighter, an athlete, and a man in peak physical condition when life threw him under the bus—literally. A tragic accident left him with devastating injuries, five months in the hospital, 43 surgeries, and a battle not just for his body but for his will to live. There were moments when he questioned if it was worth it, when the pain and uncertainty nearly broke him. But it was in those moments that he discovered something most people never will—what he was truly made of. His story isn’t just about survival. It’s about rebuilding, redefining what’s possible, and finding purpose in the pain. Matt didn’t just fight his way back—he made his tragedy his testimony, using his experience to inspire others to keep pushing forward. Whether you’re facing loss, failure, or adversity, this conversation is a wake-up call that you are stronger than you think. Matt shares the brutal truth about what it takes to fight through life’s hardest moments and how he found the strength to start dreaming again. And at the end of it all, when asked if he’d take the easy way out—if he’d let that bus miss him—his answer will leave you speechless. Key Takeaways: How Matt found purpose in his pain and why it changed his life. The one conversation that reignited his will to live. Why setting new goals—no matter how impossible—can change your mindset. The real reason why your hardest moments might be the best thing to ever happen to you. How to rebuild yourself when life hits you like a bus (literally or metaphorically). You’re going to walk away from this one with a whole new perspective on what’s possible in your own life. If Matt can come back from this, what excuse do you have? Let’s go. Max out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Ed Mylett?

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• 0:45Ed Mylett?

  So go over there and get signed up. You're going to get a free, tuition-free voucher to go to an event with Brendan and myself and a bunch of other influencers as well. So you get a free event out of it also. So go to growthday.com/ed. That's growthday.com/ed. I hear so many small business owners say the exact same thing. They just never have enough time in the day. Well, I measure time differently. I've compressed, condensed, heck, I've bent time. My first day is 6:00 AM to noon. My second day starts at noon and goes till 6:00 PM. And my third day, 6:00 PM to midnight. I now get 21 days a week. Stack that up over a month, over a year, over five years, and my life's completely different than it would have been otherwise. And if you want to win as an entrepreneur, you have to compress your time too.

• 1:30Ed Mylett?

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• 2:04Speaker 01

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• 2:38Ed Mylett?

  This is the Ed Mileage Show.

• 2:43Ed Mylett?

  Welcome back to the show, everybody. So you know, when I do an in-person interview, something big's about to happen today. And so the gentleman to my right had a 99% chance of not being here today. And I don't mean in our studio. I mean of still being on earth and being alive. A significant event happened in his life that you're going to hear about in a minute. He was given a 1% chance to live. And you're going to hear the story of what happened to him today and his comeback and the amazing lessons that were taken from that tragic event and the journey that he's been on. Today's going to be emotional for you, but more than anything, it's going to give you perspective. It's going to give you deep reasons and it's going to give you some insights of how to make a comeback. Or if you don't need a comeback, just take your life to the next level. He's also a tremendous speaker and communicator.

• 3:27Ed Mylett?

  He has a book that's been out now called The Long Run. And you're going to figure out just in about 10 minutes here, why it's called The Long Run. So my guest today is Matt Long. Matt, welcome to the show.

• 3:37Speaker 02

  Ed, thanks for having me, man. Really appreciate it.

• 3:39Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, thank you for being here, brother and coming in person, too. So let's kind of go back to December of 2005. And you had a pretty good life going at that time.

• 3:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, I would say so. You know, I was a New York City fireman for 12 years at that point. An athlete my entire life. And I had just completed the New York City Marathon qualifying for Boston. I'm thirty eight years old and I'm in better shape than I was when I was twenty one.

• 4:06Ed Mylett?

  And that was the big goal. You did the New York because you wanted to run in the Boston Marathon, right?

• 4:10Speaker 02

  Correct, one hundred percent. Boston is that unique stature where, you know, you meet someone that ran it. You say, where'd you qualify? When you meet someone who finished New York, you ask them how fast they ran. Did you break four hours? But Boston is like this, you gotta qualify to get there, at least back then. And that was our goal, in the group guys I was running with.

• 4:28Ed Mylett?

  When you were prepping, just so I understand the whole genesis of the story, you had left like a Wall Street job, I think, right? And then become a New York City firefighter. Is that right? Am I right?

• 4:38Speaker 02

  Correct. Well, I was an accountant of all things, so it wasn't even as sexy as Wall Street. I was an accountant at one of the big eight accounting firms. And I knew that wasn't for me, so I rode it out for two years, the best I could. And got involved in bartending in the restaurant businesses and then became a New York City firefighter when I was twenty six.

• 4:58Ed Mylett?

  So you're doing this profession that everybody now looks up to and understands the heroic nature. By the way, just with the fires recently in L.A., just watching those guys made me think of you. Because I knew we were gonna be doing this interview. And so sometimes you look at those guys, you think they're supermen, but they're men, right? And so were you, and we can all be hurt and injured or have tragedy enter our life. So here we go, everybody. So let's take them through what happened in December of two thousand and five for you.

• 5:25Speaker 02

  All right, so in New York City, the Transit Authority went on strike. So it basically crippled the city during the busiest time of the year. You know, we have eight million people that live there, another eight million people come there for the holidays. Transit Authority goes on strike, no buses, no trains, nothing. The mayor put in these travel restrictions. And I lived in the heart of Manhattan, I lived in forty eighth and third. And I had a small one bedroom apartment. My firehouse was up in Spanish Harlem, and I was at this point an instructor at the Fire Academy. So in order for me to get to work, I could have driven my car. But then I wouldn't have got back to Manhattan by myself if the strike was still on. So eighteen degrees with a wind chill probably of ten, probably about an eight, nine degree day.

• 6:09Speaker 02

  And I'm not a foul weather athlete, you know, maybe running, but not biking or anything else. I'm like, you know what, it's done for the day. I got on my bike. And I tried to ride my bike to work and I got four blocks from where I lived.

• 6:23Ed Mylett?

  Oh my gosh.

• 6:24Speaker 02

  And um, you know, I remember driving up North, uh, Third Avenue North. And this big white bus just coming from all the way to the left. And I'm like, what's going on? Like it's getting close. It's 5:30 in the morning. It's pitch black. And I'm like, holy, and I'm like, holy [BLEEP]. Like he's turning. Now, he was turning down a narrow street, like a one-way street in Manhattan. Then the bus would normally never turn down, maybe 57th or 34th, the double, two-lane streets. Boom, right? He gets right in front of me and I couldn't stop. And um, for whatever reason, I didn't bounce off the side of the bus. I got sucked underneath.

• 6:59Ed Mylett?

  Oh my gosh. So I knew it. So you, everyone, I knew he got hit by the bus. You went under the?

• 7:04Speaker 02

  I was under the bus and the bike, the bike and me became one, basically. You know, I don't mean to be too graphic, but it's the only way to tell the story. And um, so the bike ba- basically split me open like a can from my anus to my sternum.

• 7:19Ed Mylett?

  Oh my gosh.

• 7:20Speaker 02

  So I, I was crushed, bone fractures and stuff like that. But the worst is I was bleeding to death.

• 7:26Ed Mylett?

  Out in the street?

• 7:27Speaker 02

  Out in the street, in the cold.

• 7:29Ed Mylett?

  Are you uh, conscious of what's happening or are you, have you fallen unconscious or in and out?

• 7:34Speaker 02

  I'm in and out. Uh, I would, I'd like to say I was semi-conscious. But I think the mind, um, you know, we all underestimate our, the power of our mind and our thoughts, right? So I think that the mind immediately said, he doesn't need to remember any of this. Cause if he lives, he'll never function again. So I started, I blacked out, like pretty much, I don't even remember anything. The last word I remember hearing, the fireman, the firehouse was right around the corner. Now, I've told you, I was in the bar business, restaurant business. I knew a lot of firemen. And once they cut the hood off my head. I heard one of the firefighters say, holy it's Matt Long from forty three truck.

• 8:18Ed Mylett?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 8:19Speaker 02

  So at that moment, I knew I was in good hands. Not that we would not take care of anyone else any differently, but I'm a brother.

• 8:25Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, brother. Yeah.

• 8:26Speaker 02

  And extra care goes into that. And the first lifesaving act was from a police officer. You know, our friendly rivals, but a police officer said he's a firefighter. And instead of putting on the blue glove in that cold weather, he just reached into my groin and held my femoral artery.

• 8:43Ed Mylett?

  You're literally bleeding out.

• 8:45Speaker 02

  Bleeding out.

• 8:45Ed Mylett?

  This man saved your life.

• 8:47Speaker 02

  Saved my, he's the first order of business, saved my life.

• 8:49Ed Mylett?

  Physically with his hand.

• 8:50Speaker 02

  With his hand.

• 8:51Ed Mylett?

  Oh, my gosh, man.

• 8:52Speaker 02

  Now, I know he wouldn't have done that to an average person because there's too much at risk.

• 8:56Ed Mylett?

  Too much risk.

• 8:57Speaker 02

  He took the chance because he knew I was a firefighter. And then that's all I remember.

• 9:01Ed Mylett?

  Before we go to the next step.

• 9:05Ed Mylett?

  Are you in physical pain? Maybe that's a naive question, or are you such in such shock, you're not feeling anything?

• 9:11Speaker 02

  Total shock, didn't feel a thing.

• 9:12Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 9:13Speaker 02

  I know I was screaming because they told me I was. Anything I could tell you now, anything I've told in the past is what recounts of other people's uh, interactions with me from that this moment on.

• 9:24Ed Mylett?

  What were you screaming for, do you think? Pain or fear you were gonna die?

• 9:28Speaker 02

  I probably pain and and and, you know, I don't think I knew the magnitude of what was happening. It was probably pain. You know, the the fear of or the the thought of death didn't come into play probably till six or seven weeks later when I when I was awake and realized what I was going through, you know, the pity parties that we'll talk about.

• 9:47Ed Mylett?

  I want to just first just stop and think some you're going to bleed to death in this street.

• 9:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:53Ed Mylett?

  Because the part of the story in every story when someone has a story like yours, there are other heroic things, kind of even like the fires in California that I'm referencing, like of all the tragedy there, and if there was arson involved. But then there's all the heroic things, not just the firefighters, but the people that are donating and showing up every day. So this man, do you know who he is?

• 10:12Speaker 02

  I have his name, but we've never met. I tried to go a couple of times when I was fresh out of the hospital and and the comeback was on top of me. Like it was, the comeback was happening and I wanted to make sure all those people that did something for me knew that it was happening.

• 10:30Ed Mylett?

  That's awesome.

• 10:31Speaker 02

  The comeback wasn't for me only.

• 10:32Ed Mylett?

  Yeah. Well, it won't be for you only today either. There's gonna be millions of people are gonna be inspired. First things first, everybody, let's just step back for a second. I know you think you're having a bad day or a bad week or a bad month. You're going through a bad time. I would just say this to you, and you may really be, but compared to what? And if this man can go through what he went through to be sitting here today on the other side of this and successful speaker and author, great family man, because we're gonna go through this journey. If he can come out from under this bus crushed, bleeding to death, split in half, about to die, tell them 1% chance to live. You can certainly come back from what you're going through. You can certainly survive this time. And God is in your life as well. Okay, so let's walk through

• 11:14Ed Mylett?

  what's next from there. What's the next thing you remember or the next things that happened?

• 11:18Speaker 02

  So the next thing that happened was they stabilized me, slowed the bleeding and got me to New York Presbyterian Hospital. There was two options, right? They could have, they could have made a right turn down Second Avenue and take me to Bellevue. Or they could, they went to first and made a left to New York Presbyterian. So I think that was the first, second order of business to save my life. I'm not

• 11:40Ed Mylett?

  Why?

• 11:41Speaker 02

  Because it was just the right hospital with the right doctors and at the right time. Like I've gone back to tell my doctors, thank you for what you've done for me. And one of them was brutally honest with me. He says, look, we didn't save your life. He goes, everything happened, everything was in line. Like you weren't meant to die. And I was like, what? What do you, what do you mean? He goes, he goes, your accident happened at 5:38 in the morning. He goes, if it would have happened at 6:38 in the morning, all those operating rooms would have been booked, done, ready to go. And you would have been waiting in that emergency room for another hour.

• 12:13Ed Mylett?

  And died.

• 12:14Speaker 02

  And died.

• 12:14Ed Mylett?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 12:15Speaker 02

  So he says, so the fact that you got here before everyone else, everyone else got bumped and you went from room to room to room to room until we had you stable.

• 12:24Ed Mylett?

  You know, that makes me think ironically, one, how blessed you are that that was the case and it was destiny that you're here. But the other part of it is, just it struck me when you said it is like, This is hap- tragedies are happening daily to the point where there's not even enough beds. And we just go through our day thinking, oh, this person gave me a like that I didn't get on Instagram or said something bad to me or cut me off in traffic or the things we magnify in our life. And as we're magnifying those things, there's people like you that are on the verge of losing their life anywhere in the world right now, at any moment, in any emergency room, at any hospital, at any time. It's just the things we make a big deal in our life compared to the actual big deals.

• 13:08Ed Mylett?

  So, hey, guys, I want to jump in here for a second and talk about change and growth. And you know, by the way, it's no secret how people get ahead in life or how they grow. And also taking a look at the future. If you want to change your future, you've got to change the things you're doing. If you continue to do the same things, you're probably going to produce the same results. But if you get into a new environment where you're learning new things and you're around other people that are growth oriented, you're much more likely to do that yourself. And that's why I love Growth Day. Write this down for a second. GrowthDay.com/Ed. My friend Brendon Burchard has created the most incredible personal development and business app that I've ever seen in my life. Everything from goal setting software to personal accountability, journaling, courses, thousands of dollars worth of courses in there as well. I create content in

• 13:50Ed Mylett?

  there on Mondays where I contribute, as do a whole bunch of other influencers, like the Avengers of influencers and business minds in there. It's the Netflix for high achievers or people that want to be high achievers. So, go check it out. My friend Brendon's made it very affordable, very easy to get involved. Go to GrowthDay.com/Ed. That's GrowthDay.com/Ed.

• 14:10Ed Mylett?

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• 14:55Ed Mylett?

  if you qualify. That's R-O dot C-O slash my let to get started on Row. For side effects of GLP-1 medications, including boxed warning, go to R-O dot C-O forward slash safety, R-O dot C-O slash safety. So when I end, when I ended up buying the island, we had to do all of our outdoor decorating and I spent a fortune in the first half of the place. And I'm like, I don't want to do this anymore, but I want the best stuff. And that's where Wayfair came in. My wife wanted to get this new garden bed and Wayfair was the place that offered the perfect solution. Wayfair also helps you create a home that stands up to real life with quality products, great value and trusted reviews. Wayfair verified products are hand vetted by product specialists. They use a 10-point quality inspection system. Here's all I can tell you. The stuff has lasted over time. It looks great and I get

• 15:38Ed Mylett?

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• 16:10Speaker 03

  Wayfair, every style, every home.

• 16:13Ed Mylett?

  You now are there, you gone to the right place. What ends up saving your life or when is the decisions made, et cetera, et cetera? What, what are you faced with?

• 16:22Speaker 02

  So, so in the first like five or six hours of the ordeal, they, they gathered my family. All right. So I'm, I'm, I'm one of nine children. I'm the second oldest, seven boys, two girls. Um, there's three firemen and the rest of different jobs, Wall Street, school, teachers, whatever. Uh, so they gathered my mom and dad. I was single. So they got my mom and dad. They got all my family members to the hospital. And this is when the, the percentage was given out. I, I, I always feel for doctors as they have in this situation, an ER doctor has a tough job. Like they had to go outside to a family member and give them hope.

• 16:59Speaker 02

  But there's a line between false hope and actual like something's gonna be positive here. So I don't know how they do it, but it's part of their profession. They know how they do it.

• 17:10Speaker 02

  Doctor goes out to tell my mom and my dad that this is as bad as it gets. We're gonna do everything we can, but he has about a 1% chance to live. And he only went out, now again, I'm still friends with him as well, and he only went out because the nurses begged him to stop wasting blood and to let me expire. So he said, let me go out and talk to the parents and I'll be back in 30 to 60 seconds and we'll see what happens.

• 17:42Speaker 02

  So my mom, this is, this is a very pivotal point for my, in my journey, because I teach the strength of my mother. And she basically stubborn Irish Catholic woman, and she told the doctor flat out, do the best you can. He's running the Boston Marathon in April. And the doctor was like, now he was a runner, who just finished the same marathon, but an hour and a half slower than me.

• 18:06Ed Mylett?

  Are you kidding me?

• 18:07Speaker 02

  So he said.

• 18:07Ed Mylett?

  An hour and a half slower.

• 18:09Speaker 02

  He's like, what? He's running Boston? So he ran back into the room, looked up at the monitors, and my heartbeat was down somewhere 29 to 31 beats per minute. And he said, keep working. We're not dealing with a regular person here. His body is trained to go through insult. Keep working.

• 18:30Ed Mylett?

  Oh my gosh.

• 18:31Speaker 02

  And 68 units of blood in 11 hours.

• 18:34Ed Mylett?

  Oh my gosh. Oh my, so that's why the nurses are like, hey, we're just pouring blood into this guy. He's just going out.

• 18:39Speaker 02

  I was like a sieve.

• 18:41Ed Mylett?

  Oh my goodness.

• 18:42Speaker 02

  But they finally got me to interventional radiology and a doctor there sealed up all the veins that were cut. And, and they finally, finally took care of it and I stabilized over the next five to six weeks.

• 18:53Ed Mylett?

  What was your, do you remember your first thought when you woke up or what you remember from that experience?

• 18:56Speaker 02

  Oh, I wanted to get the hell out of bed. Like as soon as I woke up.

• 18:59Ed Mylett?

  Did you not understand the magnitude?

• 19:01Speaker 02

  I had no, no idea. So when I talked about the mind earlier being so powerful, I, I forgot things before the accident. So when they come in to do like a cognitive test to see how bad the head was hurt. And they were asking me if I like to travel and I'm sitting there with like, I had like maybe a fireman in the room with me and my mom and I'm like, uh, no, I don't like to travel. And my buddy goes, we, we, we just went to Puerto Rico together. We had a big, I went, oh, yeah, yeah, we went to Puerto Rico. So when people told me things, they came back. And I think that was just part of the mind saying this guy doesn't need to know what happened.

• 19:34Ed Mylett?

  Wow. It's God's way of protecting us somehow, or?

• 19:37Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 19:38Ed Mylett?

  Okay, here we go, guys. And we're gonna pull apart some lessons from this as well. I'm just, uh, it's interesting. When you hear stories like this, you read it in a book. It's powerful. I recommend everybody read the book. Or if we do a podcast and you listen to it, or we do Zoom, it's different when you sit right next to someone this has happened to. I just can tell you even my own personal experience listening to you, it's very different being three feet away from a person who has gone through something like this. You just feel something from them, something about their spirits a little bit tougher. I don't, you know, tougher is what I would say about you. Also, just listening to you, you're a real person. You know what I mean? Everyone can hear your family background and where you come from and what your career was. This

• 20:20Ed Mylett?

  is a real human being. I think we always think superheroes are like six, eight, can reverse windmill dunk. You know what I'm saying? Or can sing like Adele. Everyday people are heroes. There's, there, you can't measure the heart of a champion, right? You can't. So after all of this sort of settles out and now you are alive, then there's this idea of like walking, right? That would be nice to be able to do again. What was the prognosis on that even happening? Never mind ever running again or running a marathon again. What about walking? I'm just curious. Was that in the cards from the beginning or was there a concern about that?

• 20:57Speaker 02

  No, that was in the cards from the very beginning. I, I think because of my personality, once I woke up, I was, I was like, okay, let's, you know, how do I get out of here? What's, what's happening? What are, what are these pieces of metal coming out of my abdomen, my leg? What, what's on my neck? I was, you know, I was on a ventilator. I had a feed into.

• 21:16Speaker 02

  Like I need to go. So, and the doctor's like, my brother Jim and I were the closest of the nine. He's only like 13 months apart, younger than me, but he, he had to be there to say, hey, look, listen.

• 21:28Speaker 02

  You know, you were, you were run over by a bus. And I'm like, what?

• 21:33Speaker 02

  He's like, Matt, you know, you, you need to listen. You're in a good place and the doctors are taking good care of you. And you need to listen to what he has to say. So I sat there, well, I was laying there and the doctor said, listen, you're going to be here for quite a while. And I said, okay. Um, and well, what's next for me, Doc? He's like, look, let's not go down that road right now because you have a lot of surgeries. We have a lot of things to fix. And, um, he goes, we're going to do the best we can. He goes, but I can't guarantee anything. You'd be lucky if you're walking with a cane or a crutch the rest of your life.

• 22:16Ed Mylett?

  Wow. It's amazing. You literally sometimes will say to somebody kind of joking like, well, what if you got hit by a bus? Yeah. What would you do if you got hit by a bus? You were literally hit by the bus. Now you shouldn't have probably lived. You end up living metal stuff sticking out of everywhere, ventilator, and probably aren't going to walk. I'm going to give you guys a spoiler alert, just so you're about to know the lessons. This dude ran that marathon three years later. I just want you to get this. So from that right where we are, and the reason I give you the spoiler alert, so we're going to fill the gaps in with the lessons. But from that bed, three years later, he runs that marathon. Just so you know, by the way, that's badass and you're a stud.

• 22:57Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, you're a stud. I mean, I know it's your story, but maybe sitting here, hearing yourself, like, I know you've told it a lot. Like, is that not freaking ridiculous that three years later you end up doing that? Is that not?

• 23:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's, it's insane. No, and I accepted the fact that it was insane and I don't think I knew how badass it was. The one, one day when I was rebuilding myself, I would go from different gyms where I lived and I'm training and some guy came up to me in the gym and he said, are you, you the guy get hit by the bus? And I'm, I was like, ah, yeah. And he goes, hey, you got, you're 1%. And I'm like, I'm what? He goes, no. He goes, the stuff that seals are made of, the stuff that rangers are made of, those special military people, they're made of, that's what you're made of.

• 23:46Ed Mylett?

  And you know what? Something's interesting. I think you'd agree with me on this because you are. You won't ever know that about yourself in life until you go through your biggest valley in your life. Would you, like a seal figures out, I'm made of this stuff because they went through SEAL training, right? They know that. Most of us will never know what we're made of unless in some strange way, we're given the gift almost of the toughest moments of our life. Would you agree with that?

• 24:13Speaker 02

  100%. I may say it all the time. God doesn't give weak people hard things to do. God gives hard things to do to strong people. And I, and I, Ed, I've said this a thousand times. And I got this from my mom, but I was chosen because I was strong enough to do it.

• 24:33Speaker 02

  And maybe my story being told by you or John, our friend, or through the book, will help someone not as strong not give up.

• 24:41Ed Mylett?

  I love that. By the way, that's a lesson for everybody else. What you're going through right now, and then your, your test becomes your testimony. Your testimony can help the weaker person go through what they're going through. And that's why you need to get through it. And I'm loving this right now. Just so you know, this is kind of why I did the show. What we're doing right now, I do a lot of topics, but if we're going to go to kind of the core of why I do the show, it's this right now. He used a term a minute ago that I caught, which was rebuild myself. I want to talk about that. Take us through the different surgeries you had, how many you had. But this idea of rebuilding yourself.

• 25:12Ed Mylett?

  I think a lot of people need to hear real close what you're about to say because I think a lot of people, they may not have been hit by a bus, and I don't mean to be too goofy here, but metaphorically, something's hitting them like a bus right now. Their business gone away, their relationship went away, their friends, you know, hurt them in a way, or someone stole or taken, lost a loved one, exactly. And life's hit them by a bus, and they're gonna have to rebuild themselves. So what did that look like? How many surgeries? What did you start to do? And what about this rebuilding yourself thing?

• 25:43Speaker 02

  Alright, so we'll go through the hospital. I spent five months in this hospital. I did my rehab there and everything after, but I spent five months in the hospital, had about forty-three surgeries in that period of time.

• 25:53Ed Mylett?

  Forty-three surgeries?

• 25:54Speaker 02

  Forty-three different surgeries. Most of them were internal. The bones healed, they put bones back together, but I'll start with the left foot. Up, broken foot, every fracture was compound, meaning the bone came out, the skin. Tib, fib, compound fracture, femur, compound fracture, right side of the pelvis, compound fracture, right shoulder, compound fracture. My doctor would explain to me, and I to this day really don't understand how it's possible, but his exact words to me was that my right leg was no longer functionally attached to my body. I'm like, okay. Yeah, I don't know what to say about that. Now that is the leg that has most of my muscle damage and nerve damage. And then the worst

• 26:39Speaker 02

  of all was my abdominal wall was cut by the bike and severed my, my rectum. I was, had a clostomy bag for two years, multiple skin grafts to close the wounds.

• 26:50Ed Mylett?

  My gosh!

• 26:52Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, you know, it was as bad as it gets. And, and he, he operated on a lot of soldiers and stuff like that. And, and I don't like to compare myself to that at all, you know. I, I hold all our military in the highest regard, so I've never

• 27:05Ed Mylett?

  So do I.

• 27:06Speaker 02

  compare myself. But he said, he goes, I, I've been to war zone hospitals, and you were as bad as it gets.

• 27:14Ed Mylett?

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• 27:59Ed Mylett?

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• 28:42Ed Mylett?

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• 29:16Ed Mylett?

  What about your mind? When you say that, I thought of, you know, any PTSD or your spirit and your mind, just like going, why this? You had to had some moments of why this happened to me? Or I don't wanna, this isn't fair. You must have had some of that.

• 29:30Speaker 02

  I had a lot of it. And it didn't get really bad until I left the hospital. So when I was in the hospital, oddly enough, I wanted to be in hospital five months. But it was, there was a safety factor there. I had that little button. And if I needed anything at night, I hit that button. And in the next few minutes, a nurse was coming to see me. When I was sent home, I was still in a wheelchair. My younger brother moved into my house, put his life on hold, and he lived on my couch. And I didn't have that button anymore. So what I did have, Ed, was a side table about as big as that one in the middle here, with about nineteen different medications on it. And night after night, I rolled over and looked at them and said,

• 30:16Speaker 02

  is it enough?

• 30:19Speaker 02

  And I, the fight with myself was, well, you just got ran over by a forty thousand pound bus. I'm not sure it's enough.

• 30:29Ed Mylett?

  What do you mean by is it enough?

• 30:30Speaker 02

  To kill me.

• 30:32Ed Mylett?

  I thought that's what you meant, but I wanted to make sure.

• 30:34Speaker 02

  Was it enough to take?

• 30:36Ed Mylett?

  Wow.

• 30:36Speaker 02

  That would make me go to sleep and end this? And jokingly, my personality and my, my grit that I didn't know I had, you know, this, this, this will not to give up that I didn't know I had. Or maybe some stories in my life before should have gave me a warning and I have it. But I said, well, if a bus didn't kill me, I'm here now. And I take all those, what happens if it doesn't kill me? What am I, a vegetable? What do I do to my family? Am I, you know, am I brain dead? What do I, what do I do? What am I doing?

• 31:10Ed Mylett?

  What if you would have, was there ever a moment there, Matt? Where if you knew it could have taken your life? You knew it would have worked? Would you have partaken in taking it, do you think? Was there ever a moment like that?

• 31:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think if I knew for sure that I could stop the pain and the doubt of what my life was going to be like, the unknown.

• 31:36Speaker 02

  Um, I would have done it.

• 31:39Ed Mylett?

  Wow.

• 31:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, if I knew for sure. But I didn't. And um, I'm glad I didn't.

• 31:45Ed Mylett?

  I'm glad you didn't.

• 31:45Speaker 02

  Um.

• 31:46Ed Mylett?

  Couple million people are glad you didn't.

• 31:48Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 31:48Ed Mylett?

  Well, more than that, probably. Do you think? Wow.

• 31:53Speaker 02

  And my, my.

• 31:56Speaker 02

  My moments of pity. I call them pity parties, right? So I allow myself a pity party even today.

• 32:03Speaker 02

  But I don't let the pity party win. And my moments of pity were not why me? Why did this happen? Why, why am I hurt? Why I'm in pain? My moments of pity were, were, were one question. Why did I live?

• 32:15Speaker 02

  And I remember having a conversation with a family priest. About it and he had asked me. He came in to visit me and I, I was very angry. I was still in the hospital. I was very angry at the time. And my parents said, you know, let, let Father Jim go in and talk to him. So Father Jim came in and I was rolling my eyes a little bit like, here we go, you know? God has a plan for me, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, okay. This is the first time I, I remember lying to a priest. I'm thirty years old, I felt bad about it. He asked me flat out if I was angry with God. And I should have said yes. And I didn't. I said, no, I'm not angry with God. I said, but Father Jim.

• 32:54Speaker 02

  I don't need to know why this happened to me. I need to know why I lived.

• 32:59Speaker 02

  And he said, that's between you and him.

• 33:03Speaker 02

  And that was the end of the conversation.

• 33:05Ed Mylett?

  Are you convinced that part of the reason you lived is like what we're doing right now? Like you writing the book and us talking about this and the inspirational part of it?

• 33:12Speaker 02

  One hundred percent.

• 33:12Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 33:13Speaker 02

  One hundred percent. I, I believe that the first thirty eight years of my life were great. I was a happy-go-lucky kid running around Manhattan. Firefighter, you know, chasing women, doing everything I could, jock. The first time I had the opportunity to tell my story. I didn't think anything of it until I got an email. Then I got another email. Then I got another email. Then I'm getting texts and someone's following me on Instagram or someone's doing it now. And they're saying, thank you.

• 33:37Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 33:38Speaker 02

  For not giving up.

• 33:39Ed Mylett?

  Yeah. Well, thank you for not giving up. I can tell you that today. This moves me. FYI, like it moves me. I want to go back to this not knowing thing. You got me a little bit today, bro. I'm a little bit emotional on this one. You, um, was that as hard as the physical pain? I think a lot of people listening to this, like, they're like, hey, you know what I'm most struggling with? Isn't even so much that this stuff's happened to me or that I'm in this spot. It's that I don't know what's next. I don't know what's coming. How hard was that part of it? And, and what did you do about that? Just put your head down day by day or what did you do?

• 34:19Speaker 02

  The mental part of it was the worst, right? So, so.

• 34:23Ed Mylett?

  That says a lot based on your injuries and 47 surgeries.

• 34:28Speaker 02

  Correct. And it is, it is, and it's probably that way for everyone, no matter what that, what we're talking, whether it's the loved one that they lost or, or a diagnosis they got or, you know, lost their job. The mental side of it is the worst. And I remember talking to my doctor one time and, and I was just kind of like sarcastically saying, I'm like, hey, well, thanks a lot. You know, I still had a colostomy bag. I was still in pretty bad shape and I was, I was hoping to get rid of things. I didn't want the colostomy bag for, you know, at all. And I said, so he said, I said to him, I appreciate your hard work, but you fell short. And we had that kind of rapport and he said, listen,

• 35:09Speaker 02

  our job is not to worry about the quality of life. It's about saving your life. We saved your life. I said, okay. He goes, the quality of life is up to you. So that was the first like little smack I got from someone outside the family, but, but pretty much family now as a doctor. And I, and I took a long time for that to set in. Like, what, what does that mean? Like, what? Quality of life is up to me. I mean, I'm more, I, I'm in a wheelchair part of the day. I have a colostomy bag. I went from 178 pounds, 12% body fat to 122 pounds, no muscle tone. And I looked like my 90 year old grandfather. I said, I don't understand this. And, um,

• 35:55Speaker 02

  That and a conversation with my mother that really made me change my outlook about what was happening to me. Okay, adversity, right? A lot of us in this business or talk that have stories, we talk about the adversity we overcame. Okay. And I know for a fact, just from talking to you earlier, that you haven't overcome your adversity from your baseball accident.

• 36:16Ed Mylett?

  Yep.

• 36:16Speaker 02

  You live with it.

• 36:17Ed Mylett?

  Yep.

• 36:18Speaker 02

  So I had to accept this accident. I had to accept all the injuries. I had to accept the new body and say, what are we gonna do about it? What quality of life am I gonna get back? Because I can't go to a doctor for it. So I started plugging away.

• 36:36Ed Mylett?

  I'm just picturing you, because now I'm doing the math. So if you're two years with a colostomy bag, you're a year out of that and run the marathon, right?

• 36:45Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 36:45Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, that's bananas. So was part of, obviously, we would spend hours on the physical pain of physical therapy and going through the surgeries and the mental pain of waking up with it every day. It's one thing to hear a story. It's another thing like, Monday was this way for you. Tuesday was this day. Wednesday, the next Monday, the next, it's every day. Any of you that have even had the flu for eight days, imagine years of surgery, pain, physical therapy. You can no longer also do what you used to love to do, which is to be physical and be active. Was part of what got you through, or were you not envisioning this, setting the goal to go run this marathon again? Was that like, I got something to look forward to? I've set a goal. Did that help get you

• 37:27Ed Mylett?

  through? Or it wasn't till years later, you're like, nah, maybe I run a marathon?

• 37:31Speaker 02

  It wasn't to a moment in the journey. So, so no, that is not what got me through.

• 37:36Ed Mylett?

  What is it that got you through?

• 37:38Speaker 02

  So the catalyst to get my human spirit fired up and all the burners inside me to start working again was a conversation with mom. And I had said to my mother, in a nutshell, I just said to her, I'm glad you prayed and I lived. I wish you prayed for me to die. And that's something you don't say to your mom. Especially the Irish Catholic stubborn mom who told the doctor, he's running a marathon in four months after this. Patch him up, put a band-aid on, right?

• 38:07Speaker 02

  She and then she said to me, enough's enough. She said, you're not the only person in this world that is suffering. You are not the only one going through a tough time. She goes, we have not left your side for five months. Forty three surgeries, everyone has been here. If you want to be a miserable SOB.

• 38:26Speaker 02

  The rest of your life, do it by yourself.

• 38:30Speaker 02

  End of conversation. Some tough love. Now, that was the spark that I needed to hear. It took about two weeks before I got over the pity parties. I started to say my mom was right. There are other people and I listened to the people you have on here. When you bring in the real life story like mine. And I'm like, you know, the woman you had on recently, they lost her limbs.

• 38:54Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 38:54Speaker 02

  I'm like, she's 10 times worse than the life I have. So mom was right back then. She's right today. I started plugging away. That's when I put my head down. That's when I said to myself, all right, Matt, what were you doing in your life when you were happiest? What were you, what was driving you forward as a kid? The dream to play high school basketball. You played high school basketball. What was your next dream to play, make it to the college level? I didn't care where I played. I wanted to play college ball. So I always had a goal, athletic, push myself, the Ironman, the marathon. Cause I was confused and I didn't know what I could do next. I knew nothing else, but to push my body to its limits. So I said, I want to close the chapter. On Matt Long, marathon runner, Matt Long, triathlete.

• 39:36Speaker 02

  I wanted to go back and do those two things and then figure out what's next. And, and I knew they wouldn't be the same because I've accepted this new body, accepted this adversity in my life. So, you know, I came back and did that marathon three years. It took me seven hours and 30 minutes.

• 39:52Ed Mylett?

  You finished it.

• 39:52Speaker 02

  I finished it.

• 39:53Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, it's interesting when you're in person with somebody, your whole physiology spirit. Did you see that Stephen? Completely changed once you talked about your mom's conversation. Like, by the way, and your intensity level and you leaned in and humans are awesome. When humans flip that switch, the, the mind, the spirit, they're capable of so much. Because you, your whole, bro, your, your whole being was different. And then the gold actually run, but it's like, did you see that Stephen too? Like in person, the switch in you, same guy. Like, just different, just a, it's like a switch.

• 40:27Speaker 02

  And my mother did that for me. When I talk on stage, and we're, I'm probably a little older than you. But if you remember back in the day, the, the old stove, the white stove, and if you touched the middle of the stove, there was a pilot light that always burned. It's not electric like today. There was always a pilot light. And I, my story is, that analogy is, that's the human spirit. We all have this pilot light burning inside of us. How do you get the four burners going? And my mom did that for me. She lit them all up, and anything is possible when they're firing up.

• 41:01Ed Mylett?

  Bro, that's awesome. What was finishing the marathon like?

• 41:06Speaker 02

  Finishing was awesome. It was, it was a, it was an emotional finish line, my family, the fire department, guys from my house, and all my doctors. Well, not all, but some of my doctors.

• 41:18Ed Mylett?

  Were they there?

• 41:20Speaker 02

  My one doctor, God rest his soul, he's not with us anymore, but he, he had just had a baby during my ordeal. So he missed a lot of his things with, with his third child, third daughter. And I crossed the finish line. Everyone's, you know, super static for me, congratulating me. And he pulls me aside, and this I loved. He pulls me aside really quick. He said, his wife, and we took a picture, and he looks at his kids, and he goes, "Girls, this is why daddy misses Christmas."

• 41:52Speaker 02

  And we have a bond to this day with that family. But I was like, like that's another story within my story, right? Here he is, a guy who sacrifices his whole life to help people. The sacrifice comes in his children. He operated me on Christmas, on New Year's, and time after time after time, and, and, you know, this was a reward. That's why I did what I did to run that marathon, let them know that their, their sacrifices did not go on, unfinished, unpaid back, you know?

• 42:24Ed Mylett?

  Yeah. Bro, your story's bananas.

• 42:30Speaker 01

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends. Like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest, or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an ultra. Because it's not just a superior like beer. It's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 42:59Ed Mylett?

  Let's pull some more lessons out, everybody. Why'd you call it The Long Run? The book?

• 43:06Speaker 02

  The book is a spinoff of a story they did in Runners World Magazine.

• 43:10Ed Mylett?

  I know.

• 43:11Speaker 02

  And it was called The Second Life. Which is what I really liked. But we can't do that again. So, the running magazine world, the running community, we needed to have something about running. It's not only about running.

• 43:27Ed Mylett?

  Of course not. Very little about running.

• 43:29Speaker 02

  The long run, the journey. And I jokingly take people back to who I was, my personalities as a kid. Overconfident, cocky kid from Brooklyn. I get it. Not for everyone. But, but, but when, when [BLEEP] hit the fan, in real life, real time,

• 43:51Speaker 02

  it could have been 10 years for me to run that marathon again. It could have been longer. Or, the truth of the matter is that even though I wrote it, even though I did the marathon, did the Ironman, and I'm living a pretty good life, still wake up in pain.

• 44:05Ed Mylett?

  I know you do.

• 44:05Speaker 02

  I still struggle and have pity parties. So, my run is not over.

• 44:11Ed Mylett?

  Brother, I love that you're being honest about that. By the way, just the idea that 2005, you're under this bus on a freezing day, bleeding out, guy's holding your artery, your femoral artery, so you don't bleed out. That three years later, you're crossing the finish line of it. It's the New York City Marathon. You finish that thing, right? It's just bananas. It's just, it's just unreal. And, but it should give everyone hope. Like, by the way, it's a long life and a long run, but the turnaround sometimes feels long when you're doing it, but it may not. You may be one decision away, one new relationship away, but you can also be one event away from your life changing. But to your point of your today, I want to say something to you that I noticed when I came down the stairs to greet you.

• 44:51Ed Mylett?

  You turned around and I was a little bit struck. You're you look great. I've anybody watching YouTube will see this. But you do still struggle to some extent physically. We both were talking about our ailments coming in here. I missed our interview when we were scheduled guys for a root canal and this guy survives being pulled under a bus. So there's two caliber of men sitting here today. We're but he was gonna joke about us. So well, someone needs to bring it up. I literally had to reschedule our first interview for a root canal for a dude who was dragged under a bus.

• 45:20Speaker 02

  And I let him know about it.

• 45:22Ed Mylett?

  The caliber of toughness here is not equal. But you do still have the remnants of this because sitting here and hearing you people like, okay, he's passed it. It's over. This guy must be just perfect, but not true, right? You still struggle.

• 45:35Speaker 02

  That's it. I still struggled like, like, like I said about my right leg not being functionally attached to my body. A lot of the muscle never came back. So I like to joke with my wife if we're walking down the street. I said, could you mind standing on the other side? You could put your hand on my left cheek because my right cheek is mush. And it makes me feel bad that you're touching something that I can't feel. And we have a joke or laugh about it, whatever. So, um, so I have like my stabilizer muscles on my right side are gone. So I can't stand on my right leg alone. Uh, and that's, that's easy. But to be honest, you know, being, uh, having your rectum and your anus torn apart. And being in a classroom back for two years and

• 46:19Speaker 02

  a doctor saying we could put you back together. But we don't know how long, we don't know if it's gonna work like we, you have to train like. Yeah, I told John about this and I get, I don't openly talk about it because it's, who wants to talk about it like?

• 46:38Ed Mylett?

  You need to.

• 46:38Speaker 02

  Open and I had to train my rectum.

• 46:43Speaker 02

  To operate again because it was doing nothing for two years. So before the doctor could put the, take the clostridium bag out and put me back together. He had to know that I wasn't just gonna walk around.

• 46:55Ed Mylett?

  Wow.

• 46:56Speaker 02

  Crapping myself.

• 46:56Ed Mylett?

  Everywhere, right?

• 46:57Speaker 02

  So what I went through, Ed, the word dignity, you know, was gone. I had to enlist a friend to come in my apartment. And squeeze cream of wheat into my rectum. And as soon as he was done, I kicked him out.

• 47:19Speaker 02

  And then I had to record how much was in and how long it stayed in.

• 47:24Ed Mylett?

  My goodness, bro.

• 47:26Speaker 02

  And I did that for seven months, twice a week for seven months. And it worked.

• 47:33Ed Mylett?

  My gosh.

• 47:34Speaker 02

  You know, and the doctor knew my mentality and he said to me, you train for marathons, you train for Ironmans. I need you to train to get whole. And I did it. And I mean, when he told me, and I left that doctor, I was like, no way, no way. But I did it. I don't eat cream of wheat anymore. I'm sorry, this isn't a commercial for cream of wheat.

• 47:54Ed Mylett?

  But I think probably nobody is, but after that, but I'm glad you shared it because the real details of a comeback, it's easy to hear in a story, oh, he was in pain. Oh, my gosh, he had surgeries. By the way, that's a good friend.

• 48:06Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 48:06Ed Mylett?

  It's a pretty damn good friend.

• 48:08Speaker 02

  Goes down anonymous.

• 48:09Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, go on, yeah, but still, that's, that's brother right there. Gosh, what could you come back from that are listening to this? Are you hearing what this man went through? I'm sitting right with him. And by the way, I had the highest regard and admiration for you. But you're just a man, right? You're just a man. Now, I really believe this. You can't tell from looking at somebody what they're made of. And I think most human beings don't know what they're made of until they face it, until the bus of life hits them, right? And then you're defined as a man or a woman. We're all gonna get hit by life's bus, whether it's happening right now or not. They can reflect on this later if it's not happening to them. What would you say to that person? It's just happened. If they ran into you at Starbucks, my husband just left me.

• 48:53Ed Mylett?

  I just lost my dad. My business just failed. I'm totally lost and I don't have a dream in my life right now. You go, well, I know a little bit about that. What would you say?

• 49:03Speaker 02

  What I would tell people is, or that person, is two things. I would say, one, what I said earlier, that God doesn't give good people easy things to do. Your journey doesn't have to be a bus, isn't my journey. And where I would say to start is to look back in your life and figure out, because a lot of times we go through life without, oh yeah, remember Ed, we had a good, you had a great time on your football feast, wasn't that awesome?

• 49:39Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, it was awesome.

• 49:40Speaker 02

  So you look back at things, you're like, I, sometimes we just go through life and forget those things, right? I had to do an inventory check of my life when I was in the worst mental state, period. I had to do an inventory check, look back in the rearview mirror, say, what was Matt Long doing when I was happiest? And the answer kept coming back, I was dreaming. As a kid, I was dreaming, and dreams are goals, right? You set the standard, you set the habits, you create the plan, and you make sacrifices. It's still a dream that you want to bring to fruition. So that's what I would tell someone who's going through a hard time right now. Okay, take a deep breath. One, my mom says it, you're not the only person going through it.

• 50:22Speaker 02

  Two, God knows you're strong enough to succeed. Three, go back. What were you doing when you were happy? Figure it out and redo it, repeat it, start dreaming again. That's the way I would approach adversity on a blanket conversation.

• 50:43Ed Mylett?

  I love that answer. You know, in the Hebrew, my understanding is the word dream and health are very closely correlated, or almost the same word. It was just, Chris Hodges has become a friend of mine, runs a very, very big church, and he was discussing dreams and health, and he was saying, and I'm saying this too, is that the happiest I've ever been in my life is when I'm dreaming, when I've got a vision. It's also like, dream and vision can kind of be a cheesy word. But imagination is another word for that. Like when you're using your imagination, you're imagining your life. Like God gave you this imagination. And when you're a little boy or a little girl, one of the reasons I think kids are happy is they're full of imagination and dreams.

• 51:24Ed Mylett?

  And, and, and so that is a direct connection to health and wellbeing. You know, you said God a couple of times, but I'm around, you know, I'm around the, some real God, God guys, you know, you know, some of these guys are that are friends of mine. And I guess I'm, I'm told that I'm that guy a lot too. I'm wondering in your case, you're not one of these guys that runs in praise God, praise God, you know, you're, you're a quiet man that way, dignified in that regard. But I'm wondering how it impacted you. Did it make you believe in God more and less, got closer to God, not connected at all with just overall, you can't go through that and not have some consideration of God and life and dying and what it means or where you'd go or any of that stuff.

• 52:09Speaker 02

  And raised Irish Catholic, you know, church every Sunday with the family, St. Pue, blah, blah, blah.

• 52:18Speaker 02

  I believe I'm a man of faith.

• 52:23Speaker 02

  Do I go to church every Sunday? No. I would like to try to do that better with my family and my kids. There are some things my belly is not acting right today to start part of my adversity. And I just say, I'll watch online or see you after church. But I do believe that he put that bus there. I do believe that this was, was, this was something I was meant to withstand, to go through. I do believe the conversation with Father Jim, when he said, my purpose will be known and he'll, when I'm ready.

• 53:03Speaker 02

  You know, I'm, I'm lucky enough to be able to sit in platforms like this and tell my story. And I'm lucky enough to get on a stage and get paid to tell my story. But whether it's, whether I'm paid or sit here in a conversational space.

• 53:21Speaker 02

  The real reward comes in the email that will follow this podcast, the email that will follow a speech. And when I talk, like yourself, you're on stage and you're talking to adults, right, professionals, some that are high net worth, successful professionals. And then you have time for Q and A and it's like they're back in high school. They don't want to raise their hand. No one raised their hand. But before my plane lands, from west coast to east coast, I got 16 emails in my box and you could see the tears in the email. Like, thank you, thank you. I'm going through something here. I didn't want to raise my hand. And that's, that I believe was divine intervention. Like, okay, I'm not the smartest guy in the world.

• 54:03Speaker 02

  I may have been the toughest, mentally toughest guy, at least in my circle. But I was chosen for this, to help others.

• 54:11Ed Mylett?

  I love that answer, by the way. It's honest. It's honest, which is what you are. You're a good man. You're a good man.

• 54:17Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 54:18Ed Mylett?

  How's it changed you?

• 54:20Speaker 02

  I'm still a cocky, confident type of guy and I try to do things. But I think it gave me a little more empathy towards people that might be going through things. Maybe a little more empathy, especially to my, to my kids and my nieces and nephews, a little bit. You know, I'm still a tough uncle and I think I'm a tough dad. But, but I think, especially to my family and my kids. And I joke with them all the time, but I'm like, you know, you know what daddy went through? You know what daddy went through? It's gonna help you. You're built the same way and.

• 54:58Ed Mylett?

  You come from this.

• 54:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, you come from this. You're cut from the same cloth. And my 12 year old doesn't get that yet, but.

• 55:05Ed Mylett?

  That's okay.

• 55:05Speaker 02

  But yeah, she will. She'll get it someday.

• 55:07Ed Mylett?

  You know what they do? My kids, I think a lot of things with kids, I've said this before, is caught, not taught. And usually what they catch, they're not aware of until they leave your house. And then they very much are aware. I've noticed that just with my kids as well.

• 55:24Ed Mylett?

  And they're catching a bunch from you, brother. And by the way, millions of people are catching a bunch from you today, too. All right, last thing I want to ask you. By the way, this has been remarkable. I mean, I'm really honored to sit with you.

• 55:32Speaker 02

  And so am I.

• 55:34Ed Mylett?

  Well, thank you.

• 55:35Speaker 02

  In your presence, it's great.

• 55:36Ed Mylett?

  You're a tough dude. You're a tough dude. I mean, Root Canal took me out, but, but, but it's the perfect metaphor, by the way, that you were the interview I had to move for the Root Canal. I think it's pretty hilarious. You know, as I sit and listen to you, I, I asked you, you know, how it's changed you. And then I wonder, I've had life incidents. I'm going to push you really hard on the last question here. I have life incidences where I've taken a lesson from it in the moment. And then I've taken another lesson a little while later. And then I've come and given answers on shows about something, and then I've really changed my mind about something.

• 56:18Ed Mylett?

  And so I wonder, how much of what we talked about today was like how you felt then compared to now? And if you could go back?

• 56:26Speaker 02

  If I can go back 19 years ago, would I have the bus miss me?

• 56:32Speaker 02

  No.

• 56:33Ed Mylett?

  Wow.

• 56:34Speaker 02

  And the first time I was asked that question, I paused. But then I thought about the things that I have now in life.

• 56:44Speaker 02

  You know, my children, my wife.

• 56:48Speaker 02

  The people that have emailed me thanking me for surviving, thanking me for writing my story, thanking me for not quitting.

• 56:59Speaker 02

  All that would go away. Now, that's a lot to put on a person. And I wasn't ready for that. I mean, I got emails from people that were 10 times worse than me. And I didn't know what to say to them. But keep fighting, brother. Keep fighting, sister. You got this. And, and I would go away. I'm like, oh, my God, I just got an email from a guy who's, they told me he's quadriplegic. What am I gonna do? He's over at Christopher Reeves. He wants to meet me. I'm like, this is not good. I'm gonna walk in there. And this is, you know, I can't, this is not what I'm, I can't handle this. And you know what? He's walking. And we're friends.

• 57:37Ed Mylett?

  That's awesome, man.

• 57:38Speaker 02

  So, all that would go away.

• 57:41Ed Mylett?

  That is unbelievable.

• 57:42Speaker 02

  And I wouldn't want that to happen.

• 57:44Ed Mylett?

  So you would not have the bus miss you? But, bro, this is an all-time conversation right here.

• 57:50Speaker 02

  I'd do it again.

• 57:51Ed Mylett?

  This is, my producer never gets emotional. Like, that's incredible. Ah, boy. If you guys don't share today's episode, I have no idea why we're doing this. Because this is just one of the most remarkable conversations ever. Matt, I'm really grateful we did this. I'm grateful to John for introducing us. I want everybody to go get The Long Run. You can hire Matt to speak. You can follow him on social. Where should they find you?

• 58:15Speaker 02

  So LinkedIn is the best. Matthew Long, matlongspeaker.com is my website. And, um, mattlongspeaker@gmail, any questions. I'd love to take emails. And if it's just for a word of confidence or a boost that you need, shoot it out.

• 58:29Ed Mylett?

  All right. All right, everybody. I hope you enjoyed today like I did. Uh, gave you perspective, did everything I told you to do. Give you perspective, make you emotional, and give you key takeaways and insights. That's why we do the show here. This was just perfect today. God bless you, everybody. Max out.