Maybe it’s been a long time, and you’re bogged down by the negativity so prevalent in today’s society. We’re so used sensationalized stories: and as we know, bad news rather than good grabs the limelight. We being to look through jaded eyes, seeing selfishness and indifference all around us. Let’s change the focus for just a bit. We all know that, while disaster and unhappiness are very real underpinnings of our world, hope, love and compassion are as real, if not more so.
Simply Amazing is the first book by KC Armstrong, formerly of the Howard Stern show. Would you expect to find inspiration from him? Perhaps the greatest examples of the resiliency and goodness in human beings is the ability to withstand life’s heaviest blows and turn them into assets- even virtues.
KC was asked to leave the Stern show after a major psychological breakdown. He then succumbed to poverty, risky behaviors, and self-destruction. Somehow, today, KC has worked his way back into society, this time dedicating his many talents to uplifting the discouraged and celebrating the ability of ordinary people to meet their challenges head-on, accept the consequences of their actions and make amends to themselves and others for poor choices. As he says in the opening chapter of Simply Amazing: “Our mistakes do not define who we are. But they do put us where we are.”
KC now owns and runs the successful talk radio station wmapradio.com, heard in 87 countries and in syndication here in the States. His platform is to interview people who have overcome adversities, large and small, and then used their experiences to help others. 11 of his favorite interviews are included in the new book with introduction and commentary supplied by Armstrong to weave the narrative into a fascinating-sometimes brutal- testament to the beauty and resilience of the human spirit.
The emphasis of Simply Amazing is not on the hardships themselves, but on the attitude and effort the interviewees bring to their challenges. Although the problems in each chapter appear very different, each is a metaphor for the same qualities of courage, action and resiliency.
