K.C. Armstrong - Simply Amazing: Special Authors Edition

SIMPLY AMAZING

Special Authors Edition

K.C. Armstrong

Copyright 2019 by K.C. Armstrong.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 08/20/2019

CONTENTS

Founder of WMAP Radio and Interviewer

K. C. Armstrong

Copy Editor

Virginia Armstrong

Creative Director

Jessica Sorin Olmeda

Book Cover Photography

Autumn Maglia

Interviewees

Peter Gantner

Werner Reich

Tom Butts

Jenny Maher

Doug Herald

Virginia Armstrong

Jeanne Beard

Lito Mason

Laurene Hope

Dr. Elizabeth Rodger

Daniella Cippitelli

Shannon Knight

To my Mother

Virginia Armstrong

She has been trying to make me believe Im amazing

my whole life even when I refused to see it.

I thank God each day for how lucky I am to have such an

amazing, thoughtful best friend and example who showed me how

the sacrifices you make for other people are what really matters.

There is no way to put my gratitude into words, but

I thought I would take this time to try.

Youre the most amazing person Ive ever

known. Thank you for everything.

Adversity is an uncomfortable teaching tool

if you are open to learning.

Otherwise, its just meaningless suffering.

I met K. C. Armstrong through the universe of Howard Stern. We are both renegades, thrill seekers, and like to live life to the fullest. Having such a lust for life often leads to a life of bizarre adventures and an endless search to find the meaning of why we are here on this spinning rock we call Earth.

One thing you can never take away from either of us is our heart. Thats what bonded us together and why we are friends to this day. Ive called him when Ive been down, as he has done the same, to talk each other of the edge. Im so glad to see him in such a great place, and Ill always be here for him because of his heart.

He has found others with similar hearts and has interviewed them for this book. I hope you enjoy it!

David Arquette

Did you hear K. C. Armstrong is rereleasing his book Simply Amazing ?

Yeah! It was originally published in November, but I couldnt find the book anywhere! It was supposed to be in Barnes & Noble and in bookstores everywhere! I heard he was finally going to explain everything!

What the

To be as brief as possible, here is the reason for the new edition. I pitched the idea of this upbeat project that I so passionately believed in to everyone that I thought had a story to tell, and that means pitching everyone .

Because everyone has a story.

I ended up initially with ten lead authors, and the person I believed had the necessary experience and shared vision was on board to publish it. The plan was to do three to four months of interviews with each author and then have their words transcribed and then edited down in tight chapters that tell a story chronologically, with the final goal to inspire the reading audience, spreading good news for a change and sharing ways regular people use their life challenges to help others. Its important to know that most of the time, I was working from the hospital while I fulfilled this goal.

This book was going to be what I left behind; it was to be my last message to anyone who would listen because I had spent essentially every holiday and birthday in the hospital because of my poor choices, mistakes, and the lessons I hadnt learned until too late in life. I expected to be dead around the time the book launched or soon afterward. Thats not me being a hypochondriac or having some morbid, far-fetched idea. This prognosis was given to me directly by doctors, and it determined how I felt and lived, and I was trying to accept it.

I got all the interviews back in written interview format, and the manuscript turned out to be close to two thousand pages. The diamonds were there in the roughthe courageous stories of these inspiring peoplebut in speech, we all repeat ourselves (especially over the course of multiple interviews when we feel we have to review), use those ticks of expression (you know, like, I mean, etc.), and tell our stories out of order and in varying tenses. The two thousand pages were packed with redundancy, inaudible blank spaces, and more grammar and spelling mistakes than you might expect from me in the second grade.

It was then determined by the person I trusted (and paid) to help me with this project that the interviews should be put out, in their entirety, in two books in raw (unedited) form. Two books, five interviews each, approximately two hundred pages per interview. Not knowing much about books, even I knew that would be lazy, laughable, and a complete embarrassment for us all. I took a stand and would not allow my name to be put on something so ridiculous. That is when I teamed up with my best friend Virginia to learn everything I needed to publish a tightly edited, readible book to do justice to the amazing people who had entrusted their stories to us.

And here is that book.

Through all this and more I learned the most expensive yet important lesson in my life; no matter what comes your way, just do the right thing.

Introduction Part 1

K. C. Armstrong wrote a book? That guy cant spell the word book, much less read one. But write one? OK, its officialthis is the end of times.

I saw that in a chat room, and I thought it might be fun to add on to the thread. I joined the conversation: Yeah, the book is called Simply Amazing . Really? Lets suggest what the real title should be. I have some ideas to start us off. How about Simply Amazing to Sell Five Copies ? Or Simply Amazing I Bought This or, my favorite, Simply Shit . Anyway, yes, I did write this book, and I want to thank each one of you for picking it up. Let me explain.

I have been blessed with an incredible life and unbelievable opportunities. However, I am a complete ingrate who, for some reason, has done my best to destroy everything good in my path- including me. I guess thats where I should start, and I promise to be as brief as I can: I just want you to understand how this book came about and where my idea came from.

First of all, most of you would never know my name if it were not for Howard Stern. After I played my fifth football season with the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers, I was offered a job working for the most talented radio visionary of all time. Ill always respect him, and though Im sure I let him down in the end, I did the best I could and held it all together for as long as possible.

I havent told many people about this, but after I was fired by Infinity Broadcasting, the years that followed were spent in some of the darkest places one could imagine. Maybe Ill get into that in the next book, but Ill just say this:

Years after I was fired, I was homeless in California, living in a car that Ill just say did not belong to me. It was then that I was approached by a publisher who offered me a million dollarsthats right, one million dollarsto think of all the negative and revealing things I might know or have heard about Howard for a tell-all book. The truth is, Howard is a human just like all of us; hes not perfect, but he gave me a job right out of college and always treated me with respect. Years after I was let go, hed remember my birthday and help me the best he could. I know that publisher to this day, and though I didnt know it at the time, if the guy had a million pennies, Id be shocked. However, when you wake up in a hot car with the sun beating down on you so bad that you are gasping for air, youll listen to anything that could possibly change your life.