Willie Aames and his wife Maylo Upton Aames are interviewed on the Business Shrink Radio Show. Willie reveals what business is like behind the scenes of Hollywood and how a young teenage star deals with making it big early on. Willie stared in shows such as Eight is Enough and Charles in Charge and reveals his ups and downs in the Hollywood world. Maylo Upton Aames, Willie’s wife, talks about how she taught Willie to be poor again and start from the bottom moving up. Willie also reveals information on the paparazzi of behind the scenes deals that are made with high profile stars and celebrities. An in depth interview with Willie Aames and his wife Maylo Upton Aames takes you down the winding roads of Hollywood and gives just a hint of what is revealed in Willie’s new book Grace is Enough.

Segment 1

Peter: You bet! Peter Morris is The Business Shrink, and he has been on the road doing business for the last several days. I’m Peter Laufer, sitting in for him again today, and pleased to be doing that, glad that he’s asked me to do that. He’s gone from Singapore to Monaco – they sound like datelines that are for vacations, but in fact it’s Peter Morris, The Business Shrink, and he is doing business. We’ll hear from him when he gets back, I’m sure, about the types of business dealings he’s been engaged in. In the meantime, if you want to keep track of The Business Shrink in more detail or subscribe to the free weekly Business Shrink newsletter, we always invite you to check out the Business Shrink website, and that address is TheBusinessShrink.com.

Peter Morris, The Business Shrink, always talks about how broad the definition of “business” is. He challenges you, in the audience, to come up with anything that isn’t business. Anything is business, and certainly show business is business, along what happens to those who try to do business in show business – especially those who are successful at it. That’s the reason why Peter Morris, The Business Shrink, is pleased to welcome to the show here, today, the actor Willie Aames and his wife Maylo Upton Aames. Are the two of you there?

<affirmative answers>

Well, we’re so pleased that you could join us here on The Business Shrink program. What lovely voices you guys have. What are you so happy about, today? Where are you? Is it a nice day where you are? Is that why there’s such “up” in your voices?

Willie: Well, no. We were just listening to you. We were thoroughly depressed until you came on.

Peter: <laughter> Good! I’m glad that I’ve worked my magic again. That’s why I’m here. Now, many of you undoubtedly remember Willie Aames from the work he did as a child actor in Eight is Enough. It’s a great opportunity for me; I’m glad I’m sitting in for Peter Morris today, Willie, because I’ve always wondered what that does to the psyche of a person…to achieve such stardom at such a young age. It must be a question you’ve been asked plenty of times, and even if you haven’t, you’ve contemplated it, yourself. It’s something that comes up in the book, and we’ll be talking about your book here, today – Grace is Enough – the book the two of you wrote, together. What did that do to you, to just be a punk kid and having everybody loving you?

Willie: You know, that was one of the primary reasons we wanted to write Grace is Enough is because you see so much with Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, and back a little further, it was John Belushi’s death and Chris Farley’s death. You also had River Phoenix, and now lately you have Heath Ledger and Brad Renfrow.

Peter: Yes, it’s really depressing as you go through that pantheon of stars dying at such a young age. It’s really something that needs to be looked at.

Willie: It happens quite often, and I’m sure I’m missing a few. Look at Anna Nicole Smith, and my co-star on Eight is Enough, Lani O’Grady. If you make it past 30 years old, in some cases that’s quite a feat. One of the reasons we wanted to write Grace is Enough is because I started acting when I was eight. Eight is Enough was my seventh network series, and I started when I was about fifteen. Then, Charles in Charge, after that, was my fourteenth network series, and what I wanted people to know is not so much the dirt behind the scenes, but what was going on psychologically, what was going on emotionally.

I don’t necessarily think that it’s Hollywood – you know people want to blame Hollywood. I kind of think it’s a personality problem. I think that you have certain issues whether it’s a faith problem or a family problem, a parental problem. For whatever reason, I think a lot of very artistic people have self-esteem issues.

Peter: But, isn’t it in addition to that, you get a double whammy. If you are an artist and you achieve notoriety, fame, success, financial wealth at an extraordinarily young age, then – I can’t speak of this from experience because I didn’t have that kind of notoriety at a young age, but if I extrapolate and try to imagine what that would be like – then to manage that is hard enough for somebody who’s relatively mature.

Willie: You saying “trying to manage it” is the key issue. Certainly, there’s an issue with having people recognize you and then not recognize you, and give you everything you want, literally for free and then suddenly you have to start paying for it yourself. But, when you’re being managed as a child and it takes off and you’re going into your young adult years, people – like parents who become your managers – think they can handle the business aspects of it. What they forget is that they’re dealing with hugely sophisticated attorneys and producers and ways of creating contracts that, unless you understand specifically entertainment law, you’re going to be in deep trouble. People think a contract is a contract is a contract, and to some extent yes, that’s true, but when you get into specific fields, it can be very, very treacherous trying to negotiate that.

The other thing that I’ve found is that when kids are making a lot of money…first of all, when you go into the industry, you go before a judge, and the judge says, “Do you want to do this?” You say, “Yes,” and they give you permission to go ahead and work in the industry. Then, you’re supposed to put 25% of your earnings away as you make it, and that’s to keep the kids from going broke. But, what is never taught is when you’re making money…let’s say I was making a million dollars a year at 15 years old…

Peter: And that’s a million mid-70s dollars.

Willie: Exactly, and they say, “Well, you realize that you’re paying mom as your manager, and that’s 15%, and you’re paying your agent 10%, and then you’re paying your business manager 5%.” As a kid, you’re going, “Yeah, I understand that. That’s okay.” What they don’t give you is a real understanding of the value of a dollar and the big picture. As businessmen, especially on a show like this, everybody understands that if you earn a million dollars, you don’t realize a million dollars.

Peter: Yes of course – just starting with the tax man, and then there’s that litany of other stuff that you just went through, and all of this happening within the matrix of trying to deal with childhood and adolescence and young adulthood, which is difficult enough without a million dollars a year.

Willie: Exactly. When you look at Lindsay Lohan and everybody asks why she is acting so crazy, or Britney, you have to understand that as you grow up in this industry, you are being managed from the moment you start. You can’t do this. You have to dress like that. If you get into trouble, they’ll pull your work permit so you won’t be able to work anymore.

Peter: You are listening to The Business Shrink program. If you are waiting for the voice of Peter Morris, he’s working in Monaco today, and he really is working. I’m Peter Laufer, pleased to be sitting in for him. We’re talking with Willie Aames, and we’ll be talking with his wife during the hour, Maylo Upton Aames, about the book that they’ve authored together, Grace is Enough.

Willie, when you look back at that period, being managed, what’s an example of one of the most onerous things that somebody made you do or did not allow you to do that made you crazy as a kid.

Willie: Well, I think for me it was kind of everything. As you grow up, you become very rebellious anyway, especially at fifteen. You know you’re fifteen years old. I was playing in my rock band. I was working five days a week on Eight is Enough. The band was flying out Friday night, playing two different cities, maybe opening up for Rod Stewart on Saturday, and then flying home Sunday and going to work Monday. Disco was big and On Eight is Enough, they wanted me to play disco, and I wanted nothing to do with it.

So, I went out and got an earring. Well, that was headline news back then. An earring was a big deal, and oh, they couldn’t shoot me from my left side and they were going to sue me. Then, a little bit later on, I was signed to do the movie Blue Lagoon…

Peter: So you got that earring not just because you wanted an earring, but you wanted something you could shove back at all these people telling you what to do.

Willie: Absolutely! It was “You want that? Okay, here you go!” I was cast to do the Blue Lagoon. The original cast was Diane Lane and myself, and at that time, ABC was losing all of their stars. Farrah Fawcett was leaving Charlie’s Angels. John Travolta had left Welcome Back Kotter. They said, “Put a stop to all of it.” So, I was offered this movie, and I needed to take a couple of weeks off to make it work. They said, “Absolutely not,” and they slapped me with a $21 million injunction to stop me from doing the movie.

Peter: That’s incredible, because to think about this stuff from the other side of the television screen, it’s hard to imagine the machinations going on behind the scenes. The stuff that one reads about, as you’ve been mentioning – the Lindsay Lohan, the Britney Spears stuff – that’s imaginable, but the $21 million injunction because you wanted to take two weeks off to do a movie…from a business standpoint and from a popular culture standpoint…is hard to imagine.

Willie: Also, you have to remember that these are hugely powerful men, and you’re really caught between a couple of different things. The director of Blue Lagoon, Randal Kleiser, wanted to smuggle me out of the country and have me live in Fiji until they were ready to do the movie. Then we’d do the movie, and I’d come back and deal with it. Well, that’s a pretty difficult choice for a young man to make – fight ABC and a court injunction and live as a refugee on an island somewhere in the south Pacific, do a feature film, and then come back and deal with the consequences.

Peter: Now, that would have been a book.

Willie: I guess so. You know, some of these things we don’t really discuss in the book because there wasn’t a lot of time, but that’s a lot of pressure. Then you have, also, the ethical standpoint, which is that I agreed to do this series. It made me a star. I have an obligation to the show. I’d never walked off a set in my life. Why would I suddenly do that? Then, when I decided, “No, I’m going to stick with the job that I’ve got”…I was happy with it. I wasn’t going to pull that kind of a stunt. Then suddenly Randal Kleiser was mad at me, and swore he would never use me again in any film.

So, there is a lot of push and pull that goes on, and then time is being worked out by attorneys and managers and agents, and that’s a big “to-do.” The bottom line is that it comes down to what you want to do.

Peter: During that time, I imagine you’re either educating yourself about the business side of your life, or you’re just crossing your fingers and hoping that those with whom you’ve entrusted it, don’t do you dirty.

We’ll find out more about that as we continue this conversation with Willie Aames and his wife, who you will meet shortly, Maylo Upton Aames. We will talk about the book that they put together, analyzing how some of these things you’ve been listening to affected his later life and their getting together. Grace is Enough is the book. It comes from B & H Publishing Group.

You are listening to The Business Shrink. The Business Shrink is Peter Morris. He’s working in Europe today. He’ll be back soon. I’m Peter Laufer in the meantime, pleased to be sitting in for him, and please to direct you to The Business Shrink website. If you’d like more information about the show or the upcoming Business Shrink books that speak so directly to so many of the things that Willie Aames is talking about, regarding how business permeates our lives, no matter what, just check out TheBusinessShrink.com. That’s TheBusinessShrink.com for more about The Business Shrink, Peter Morris, and more about The Business Shrink empire.

Segment 2

Peter: Peter Morris is The Business Shrink. Peter Morris is working in Europe today. I’m Peter Laufer, pleased to sit in for him and pleased to have Willie Aames on as a guest. You may have run into him first when he was starring in Eight is Enough. He has pages of CV since then. His wife, Maylo Upton Aames, is with us also. They’re on together because they have just published a book. Grace is Enough comes out from B & H Publishing Group.

As you know, Willie, I am filling in for Peter Morris, so I have not had the opportunity to look at the book, but as I understand it, the spectacular opportunities of stardom did not mean a stellar life of no concerns and only an upward trajectory. Your book deals with some of the problems that you encountered, some of which could be blamed on that lifestyle that you hinted at as we were talking a few minutes ago.

Willie: First, just briefly, let me brown-nose here for just a second, because this is a great interview. I don’t often get to talk about what happens from a business point of view, and now I’m almost 50, having that hindsight. This is an incredible opportunity for me, and I thank you and Peter, together, for letting us do this.

Peter: We’re most pleased to have you. Thank you for that. As I said earlier, one of the premises of the program is that business is everywhere, and certainly as you’ve been outlining it, some of these – what you could call, particularly in retrospect – traumas of trying to deal with what, from the outside, seems just like largesse…

Willie: People always say, “What advice would you give to anybody coming up in the entertainment industry?” What I always tell them is “You’re on your way to being broke. You just don’t know it yet.” That’s really the truth, because – as we were saying before the break – the fact is that there really isn’t anyone giving people the education of what it means to earn that kind of salary at any age. Back then, a million dollars was maybe three million dollars today, but it’s still relative. When you look at it and you’re going to be paying somewhere in the neighborhood of 47% in taxes, 15% to the agent, 10% to a manager, 5% to a business manager…by the time you get done with everything, you’re not dealing with 100% of what you earned.

Peter: You know, Willie, I have this image of you – which I know is absolutely incorrect because it couldn’t occur – but there you are in your high school Econ 101 class. You raise your hand and you say, “Teacher, I’ve got this problem. I’m making a million dollars and 47% is going to the feds.” Your classmates nod that they understand because they have the same problem with their paper routes.

Willie: Yes, and in fact it created quite a bit of tension, because I did attend a public high school when I wasn’t on the set where I had tutors. In the book there’s a story that I tell about walking in when photo-grey sunglasses first came out – when you walk in the sun and turn dark and they take a while to lighten back up. I walked into a classroom and they were showing a filmstrip. My glasses were still sunglasses. The teacher was going, “Hey Hollywood. I like your sunglasses there, Hollywood. Why don’t you take those off so you can see the film strip.” The class is laughing at me and I’m in junior high school and getting really upset. I finally turned around and said, “Hey look, I paid more in taxes last month than you made all year, so why don’t you leave me alone.”

Peter: I bet that went over really well when report card time came around.

Willie: I was sent to the principal’s office. It was a smart-aleck thing to do and I was out of line. At the same time, there was a lot of that kind of tension, and I have to say I think there was that same kind of tension within my family, because my father was a fireman and my mother was a manicurist. They would have people at their work start making fun of them because I made more money than they did. It wasn’t something that there was constant problems about…

Peter: It’s fascinating to see, and it is cliché, but nonetheless, you’re giving these real life examples that not only does money not buy happiness, but having an inordinate amount of money appear in a familial situation that does not expect it can be problematic to the point of disruption.

Willie: Yes it can be, and then there are situations where… I remember several times when the bills were overwhelming. My family was a very blue collar family and there were four kids. They’re struggling to figure out how they’re going to pay the bills, and you have the money.

Peter: So you’re having to make decisions vis-à-vis the family and your personal wealth. We’re going to get right back to that, because speaking of paying those bills, this is commercial radio, and Willie Aames you know that that means commercials.

Willie: You have to love the sponsors, because without them we’re all gone.

Peter: That’s actually right, and thank you for reminding us. This is The Business Shrink program. I’m Peter Laufer, pleased to be sitting in for Peter Morris, The Business Shrink, today. I get a chance to meet Willie Aames, and the conversation will continue here on The Business Shrink.

Segment 3

Peter: The Business Shrink is Peter Morris. Peter Morris, The Business Shrink is not here today. He’s working. I’m Peter Laufer, filling in for him today, pleased to be filling in because I’m getting a chance to get to know Willie Aames a little bit. Willie Aames, and his wife, Maylo Upton Aames, have written the book, Grace is Enough, from B & H Publishing Group. We’re talking about their lives in the context of business, as we talk about things in the context of business always, here on The Business Shrink program.

Willie, before we say hello to Maylo, you were talking about what it’s like to have been in this blue collar household with bills mounting, and you having a wallet full of your personal stash, and then…

Willie: And then?

Peter: And then what happened?

Willie: Whoosh, I kind of lost you there for a second.

Peter: No, how did you deal with those kinds of pressures?

Willie: You run the risk of insulting your father, because you want to pay the bills, which is also one of the classic traps that families fall into because they start to spend their child’s money. They justify it by saying, “We had to spend time helping him” and that sort of thing…

Peter: That’s fascinating, what you just said, because we deal here with the psychology of business on this program. That’s Peter Morris’s specialty. You say it’s not just a matter of the actual pile of money. It’s that this could infringe on your father’s sense of head of the family if his son needs to help him pay the bills.

Willie: It infringes on everybody’s personal space, because there’s pressure on the family. There’s pressure because there’s money there. There’s pressure as a son to want to help the family, at an age where you just be a kid. There’s pressure to want to maintain your own personal wealth. It’s like anybody that comes into money – at any age, really – it’s just that you’re not fully capable of understanding the dynamics that go into it. That can be very, very confusing.

Just to clear up – I have been so blessed, Peter. I’ve had an amazing life, and you’ll see that in the book. I’ve been a millionaire many times, and I’ve been absolutely broke a few times. It’s all kind of part of that up and down in the film industry. There are things like this last writers’ strike. I suffered through several strikes. You get used to spending a certain amount of money, and suddenly you’re guaranteed another year’s worth of money and all of a sudden it’s gone. That’s $800 thousand you’ll never recoup, yet the bills continue to move on and you know that you’re going to be at work sometime after that. There are some big hits, and I think it’s important. Even running just a family household is such a business, and you have to have such a business sense.

Peter: So, would you suggest, Willie, that the kinds of problems, personal problems, that you detail in the book, were the result of making so much money so early, or is that just unfair to place the blame externally and it’s that you had some personal problems that you had to work out?

Willie: Peter, I don’t place the blame on anybody but me. My parents did the best they knew how, and most parents do. I don’t think there’s anybody that really sets out to try to cheat somebody. I made some bad personal choices. I had some bad business investments that put me in trouble with the IRS for over 25 years. That’s probably the thing that upset me most in my career.

Peter: I guess! Twenty-five years on the wrong side of the IRS, especially as we’re approaching April 15, sounds devastating.

We’re going to continue this, and as promised, after we take care of this bit of business, we’re going to meet your wife because we want to know her role in all of this. Willie Aames, it’s a pleasure to be speaking with you here on The Business Shrink program. The Business Shrink, Peter Morris, is on duty in Europe, making some of that money that we hope you’re talking about. I’m Peter Laufer, filling in for him. Check out details on Peter Morris’s biography at TheBusinessShrink.com.

Segment 4

Peter: Yes, Peter Morris is The Business Shrink. He’s in Monaco today. It’s kind of date-lined. It doesn’t sound like business, but I know he’s there doing business. I’m Peter Laufer, sitting in for him, and pleased to be here talking with Willie Aames and momentarily with his wife, Maylo Upton Aames. They’ve written the book together, Grace is Enough, from B & H Publishing Group.

Willie, it’s fascinating talking with you, and to move from the usual kind of conversation about stardom to what that background is in a business sense not just helps put into perspective the Hollywood facade, but also gives those of us who don’t go through millions while we’re in junior high school the chance to think about how that isn’t the key to happiness. It’s intriguing. It’s really fun to have this conversation. It makes me think about something that the police chief in LA said recently. He was asked if there should be some kind of a new law to further control paparazzi. He said, “No, what would take care of things would be if Britney would just stay home.”

Willie: <laughter> Yeah, you know I saw quite a bit of that. There was a panel of people discussing that same law. As a matter of fact, they’re trying to pass that law to create a space, a barrier, between the people and the paparazzi. The truth of the matter in that circumstance is that Britney calls the paparazzi on herself. I happen to know that and I know others that do, because when you are being offered a million dollars for a specific star’s picture, the star will call in and say, “Hey, I’ll split it with you.” They’ll call the paparazzi on themselves.

Peter: And really, Hollywood calls the paparazzi on itself, right? If ever there were a symbiotic relationship – that’s one. Without US Magazine and without People Magazine and all the rest, then it’s pretty hard to create yourself into Britney.

Willie: Yes, it’s like a shark with a remora. One feeds off the other. For instance, I can tell you in some of the more popular stores in Beverly Hills, Jodi Foster can walk in and shop without anybody batting an eye, but if it’s Paris Hilton, there’s a thousand paparazzi. Well, we all know Jodi is a very accomplished and very intelligent actress. I’ve known her since we were ten years old together, but she’s not what’s going to sell magazines right now. She’s a legitimate actress. Then you have Paris who is a legitimate “celebrity,” and there’s a different between the two for sure. So, it is a very interesting thing, and it’s such a pleasure to be able to talk about some of the more intelligent aspects of Hollywood and how it works.

You know, there’s no producer or film studio standing around, handing out drugs and alcohol and trying to ruin somebody’s life. They want to make money, and they want you as healthy as they can get you and they want you as natural as they can get you. They want you to be as happy as they can get you.

Peter: That just goes back to the blame you were talking about, and how for the problems you’ve had, you assume that blame on yourself you say.

Willie: Absolutely. I’m not saying that I didn’t get some bad advice, and I’m not saying that some people maybe took advantage of my generosity. However, when push comes to shove, the day I turn 18, everything else is on my shoulders. That being manipulating, that being contained while growing up through adolescence creates an added pressure that makes you want to act out in different ways. But, in many ways, if you think about it, put yourself in the spot in a high school where football is everything. You have a star on the high school football team. They expect him to go to college. They expect him to go to the pros, and for whatever reason, he doesn’t make it. The dynamic is essentially the same.

Peter: Sure – any kind of pedestal role that you are not prepared for – and maybe if you are prepared for it.

We better say hello to your wife, Maylo, or I’ll violate the cardinal rule of radio, which is promote forward and not deliver.

Maylo: That’s alright.

Peter: It’s fascinating, though, to have this conversation with Willie, and for you, Maylo, coming into the relationship after so many of these things that he’s talking about have occurred, it must be a fascinating business venture there, in itself.

Maylo: Well, you know when I met Willie, he was just on the downside of – like he alluded to – the problems with the IRS and the terrible, awful, disgusting Hollywood divorce. He was lower than he had ever been in his life, and I grew up in a very kind of low income, abusive, horrendous atmosphere. My whole thing was, “Willie? It’s okay. I’m going to teach you how to be poor.”

Peter: What a great line, Maylo! What a great line: “It’s okay. I’m going to teach you how to be poor.”

Maylo: Absolutely. I remember rolling pennies with him. He kept saying he didn’t have any money, “I don’t have any money. I don’t have any money,” and he had this water bottle that he’d been throwing change into, and I said, “You’ve got a ton of money. You’ve got money you’re not seeing. There’s money right there.” It was like, “Oh yeah!” We dumped that out and we made our own penny rolls and went to a market to buy cheese and crackers and at that time, cigarettes – whatever it was we were going to live on.

There were people in line – this was in Los Angeles – that recognized him that were snickering and saying stuff under their breath about him being a big star and that we were paying with penny rolls. I could see the devastation on Willie’s face to go from being “the guy” in town and making all that money and then having people laugh at you in line. It’s like, “There’s nothing wrong with this, Willie. Those people are going to have their struggles, too. There are ways to live – you know, I can make beans ten different ways that taste good and taste different.”

Peter: Absolutely. Therein, of course, lies wealth. It’s a conversation that we’ll continue here as we take care – speaking of business, as I said – business, here on The Business Shrink program. I’m Peter Laufer, sitting here for Peter Morris. Peter Morris is off doing business. We hope not rolling pennies, but it’s just fascinating to hear this back story, which is told in depth in the book, Grace is Enough, by Willie Aames and Maylo Upton Aames. It’s published by the B & H Publishing Group. We’ll hear more stories from them as Business Shrink program continues. I’m Peter Laufer, in for Peter Morris, as I said. You can learn more at TheBusinessShrink.com.

Segment 5

Peter: The Business Shrink is Peter Morris. I’m Peter Laufer, filling in for him. It is a pleasure to be talking will Willie Aames and Maylo Upton Aames about their book, Grace is Enough, from B & H Publishing Group.

Willie, listening to Maylo talk about needing to tutor you in the basics of being poor is so intriguing to think about. Was there some liberation, to some extent, in going into a shop with rolls of quarters, trying to get enough for dinner? Or rolls of pennies?

Willie: Rolls of pennies. You know, at first there wasn’t, but when she said that to me, we were standing in line and I was being made fun of. I’m no stranger to hard work. I’ve always done construction and that kind of stuff in between shows, but I looked at her and I thought she was kidding. I looked in her eyes and she was absolutely dead serious, and that was liberating for me, because I found somebody who didn’t want anything from me but me.

Peter: Let me just stop you right there. Let me just stop you for a second, because that is such a focused and important line, really. With the lifestyle that you were living, you had to constantly – I would imagine – thinking of who the sycophants were, who were going to try to ride your coattails next. That line: “Somebody who wanted nothing from me but me” must have been really liberating.

Willie: It really was, and Maylo growing up as a runaway on the streets of Hollywood had never seen Eight is Enough. She had no idea who I was when she met me. We got to know each other, and truly, it became a relationship based on our personalities and our mutual desire to have a companion. When she told me that, and I looked in her eyes and I saw how honest she was, I knew that this was going to be the girl that I was going to marry. I have to tell you, Peter, we’ve had lots of ups and downs, money comes and goes. It’s better to have it than not, but I wouldn’t trade a minute of my life with my wife for more money, ever.

Peter: Absolutely understood. The book is Grace is Enough. The authors are Willie Aames and Maylo Upton Aames. We’ve got just less than a minute here left, Willie, but we’ve talked, and you’ve been so gracious, because it is a business show, to be talking about the business aspects of your life in Hollywood. Give us a quick elevator pitch on what else is in the book.

Willie: Well, right now Celebrity Fit Club Boot Camp is running on VH1. Every Thursday night there are new episodes. Of course the book, Grace is Enough, is out there. You can get it any of the outlets. We’d like you to visit Grace is Enough online, which would be a great place to catch up with the book. Then I have two more books that are coming out with St. Martins Press, and a couple of other shows that are in development. I’ve been pretty busy and having a good time at it.

Peter: It sounds terrific. It’s great that you are doing what you want to do and can see it with such a clear perspective. Again, I didn’t get a chance to read the book, but as I understand it an element of Grace is Enough and the change in your life is your faith.

Willie: Absolutely. One of the things that we’re discussing with some of the different channels is the fact of putting together a show. It doesn’t have to be my own personal brand of faith, but to have a faith-based background and a good solid family foundation will help a lot of these kids today, especially with the rap culture that just preaches gold.

Peter: We have to leave it there, and the rap culture’s probably glad we didn’t indict them further. Willie Aames, thank you so much for spending some time here with The Business Shrink today. I know The Business Shrink, Peter Morris, is sorry he didn’t get to meet you this time on the radio. It’s The Business Shrink!

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