Welcome to Rooted Agritourism. I'm Dr. Liz Fidler
-Murgan, owner of Sunny Mary Meadow, a you -pick
flower farm, wedding florist, and event venue
in central Minnesota. Our mission is to serve
anyone rooted in agritourism, value -added agriculture,
and rural entrepreneurship. The people turning
ideas and raw products into thriving businesses
and experiences. Let's dig in. Hello and welcome
back to another episode of the Rooted Agritourism
podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Liz Fidler -Murgan,
and today we are coming at you from, I would
say... Orlando, but it's not that sunny out.
It's nicer than it is in Minnesota. But we're
gonna do a Flowers Bloom Anyway episode. I've
been sprinkling out these Flowers Bloom Anyway
episodes and they're more related to personal
growth and the grief and the book and all of
those things that I have going on and I know
that you guys have been... Amazing in wanting
something to cheer for and so I have dr. Mark
Hicks with me and Mark and I met last year at
this same podcasting conference podfest Expo
and We were on the same journey of you know,
he republished his book with the publisher that
I'm going with and Honestly, I can say that I'm
like, well, he seems like a nice guy and he trusts
them, so I guess I can trust them. But welcome.
Thank you. Glad to be here. So can you walk us
through a little bit, my audience understands
the backstory of my book and how it was going
to be self -help and then it turned into this,
turned into that. I have self -published a children's
book before, but the reason that I wanted to
go through Morgan James, a publisher. is to give
my book the opportunity to be in the hands of
more people and more people to find it and more
people to reach it. And, you know, definitely
the way to make money as an author, if you're
just clearly chasing dollar signs, is to either
self publish or buy a bunch of your own copies
and resell them on your own website or something.
But that's not my goal for this book. And I don't
think that's your goal either. And so. Can you
just walk us through a little bit how this came
to be? Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's a winding
road. I had the ambition and the dream of being
a writer. I felt like I had some things I wanted
to say. Didn't always know exactly what that
would be. But as things came about, my book is
Learning Love, Building a Life That Matters and
Healthy Relationships That Last. The beginning
of this particular book was probably at the end
of my first marriage. I didn't always know what
I know today. And when I was young, I ended up
in a very toxic relationship. It was another
disaster. I still have the emotional scars for
that one. That ended in divorce. And I really
hit a time that I wondered if love even existed.
Or was it just something a few lucky people stumble
into accidentally? Or you look at so many people
that... Obviously, the divorce rate is high.
But then you ask the question, how many people
that are married are happy? And obviously, there
are some, but there's a number of people that
stay together for money or for religion or for
the kids. And so at a low point in my life, I
was asking those questions. Is love really real?
And so through that journey, the answer is yes.
that there really is love. But it's not just
fantasy, and it's not something you stumble into,
that love is something we can learn. And very
often we learn about love from our family. And
that could be a good source, but it may not be.
If we're raising a dysfunctional family, toxic
family, abusive family, we're not really learning
what we need to learn to understand how to build
healthy relationships. And so what I teach in
the book is how to build those healthy relationships.
Even if we didn't learn in the family, or even
if we've been through a divorce, been through
toxic relationships, been through whatever we've
been through in life, we can build those healthy
relationships. And so... People have asked me
how long did it take to write the book, and I
always say either three months or 15 years, depending
on, you know, when I sat down to write it, it
was in my mind. It went very quickly, but it
had been in there for a long time. When I did
write the book, I self -published. A friend of
mine helped me get it on Amazon and, you know,
sold some copies, friends and family, and tried
to promote it a little bit, did a few speaking
engagements. But then... That book helped me
get a job as a ghostwriter. My boss at the ghostwriting
agency read my book, didn't ask her to, but she
read it. And I was talking to her one day about
a client that we were going to be writing for.
She said, I read your book and it needs to be
available on a wider scale. And could I introduce
you to Morgan James Publishing? And I was like,
yeah, that'll be fine. And so she introduced
me to David Hancock, the founder of Morgan James.
I pitched the book. He loved it, and he took
it to the committee that makes those decisions.
They picked it up, and it was published in June
of 25. It's been a wonderful experience to have
it available on a wider scale like that. As you
said, it's not about the number of books that
you sell. It's not about the money. It's about
the message. I have always wanted to help. I
feel like the world needs help. And I feel like
as many people that will and can should do what
we can to help. This is what the book is about.
It's about building those healthy relationships
that we all need. Well, and if you're listening
to this, the majority of my listeners are, let's
say half of them are either current or aspiring
flower farmers themselves or building a business
similar. And the thing is, I can tell you exactly
when my business shifted from a side hustle into
a sustainable business that was going to turn
into a career. It was when I quit focusing on
just the technical and looked at everything as
a whole and looked at the relationships. What
is going to be sustainable for my family? How
can I show up better? And you can't put anything
in life in a box. Right. When your relationships
are better, it's hard to describe. But when you're
calm, the way you react to things, the way you
react to whatever it might be. Right now, the
big buzzwords are mindset. And it's all just
literally learning to love the people in your
family, but your fellow humans and your fellow
just anyone that you have any interaction. Yeah.
In my book, I teach the five components of love.
it breaks love down into an understandable way
to practice love and that is true in marriage
and family but it's also in friendships and with
co -workers and those are obviously different
relationships but the same principles apply of
how do we build those healthy relationships and
I mentioned that I went through a divorce when
I was younger. I'm remarried now. And I've said
many times, I've had a bad marriage and a good
marriage, and good is better. We really need
to work at building those healthy relationships.
It gets overlooked about how important that is.
But if we have healthy families that are actually
happy living together and living together well,
and we go to work and we have a love for what
we do, and we have a love for our coworkers and
a connection there, and we can... build those
healthy communities and we understand the principles
of how to do that, then we change society and
we have the life that we actually want because
of love. So you have the experience piece. What
are your other credentials to be talking about
this? I have a master's degree. I do have the
life experience. I've been through a few things,
but I have a master's degree in mental health
counseling. I also have a master's degree in
divinity and a doctorate in ministry. My doctoral
dissertation was on recovery, and I was for a
time the director of a addiction recovery program.
Really, when you talk about counseling, we're
talking about... We're talking about learning
to love yourself, love your family, love people,
love humanity, to love your job. Whatever we
come back to, it's about those relationships
in ministry and spirituality and theology. It's
about love, it's about relationships, relationship
with yourself, relationship with your family,
with other people, with humanity, with God. Whatever
area we're speaking about, it's always about
relationships. Even in business, it's about the
relationships you make, it's about those connections
you make, and loving what you do. Even though
every job's a grind, you're not gonna love it
every day, there's gonna be stuff, but learning
to have that emotional capacity to love what
you do and love your coworkers, and to know that
you're contributing something to the world that's
positive. through what you do. This is how we
build healthy lives. Well, I think that, you
know, last year I still remember we were sitting
in that room where Nick, the CEO of Podfest,
Morgan James Publishing, was talking about how
people write the wrong book. You were sitting
next to me. I've talked about that moment. on
my podcast multiple times. That was the moment
that just shifted because he said, write the
book that gets you where you want to be in five
years. Imagine your life five to 10 years from
now and what book gets you there. And that's
why my self -help book never finished. That's
why it didn't feel right because I was sitting
here trying to teach people how to grieve and
I'm like, no, you know what? Let's let Dr. Mark
Hicks teach people how to love and I'm going
to teach people about flowers. And so my book
turned into a memoir of just everything and how
this came to be. And, you know, it just it's
so true, you know, when it comes to podcasting
or whatever. And I feel like, you know, this
show itself, as you guys are listening, we have
something really exciting coming up, changing
to. you know the the series that we're going
to do in interviews but right now it's okay that
My podcast, I don't want to, Abby's like cringing
when I'm saying it's on the back burner because
she's like, what? But no, we're, we're still
putting it out, but we're in a little bit of
an intermission while I tidy up the loose ends
of, I mean, my venue just opened in November
and my book comes out in March. And you know,
we're doing all these kind of in -between things
right now. It's all about growth and taking care
of things. And I just, thank you so much for
being here, Mark. So what's the name of your
podcast? Where can they listen? It's just a very
calming. thing to listen to. I love it. Yeah,
the book is Learning Love, Building a Life That
Matters and Healthy Relationships That Last.
I have a podcast, which is the Learning Love
podcast, which is wherever you listen to podcasts.
If you are searching for that, you can go to
my website and my foundation. I have the Learning
Love Foundation. There's a theme here. Where
we do Learning Love Foundation, we do mental
health education based on relationships, helping
people love what they do for a living, helping
people love their family and how to build a healthy
family. dynamics. And so we do workshops and
things of that nature in order to have that healthy,
happy, thriving life. And so you can go to learninglovefoundation
.com. You can find my podcast there. You can
find links to purchase my book and all the stuff
that we're doing with the foundation, learninglovefoundation
.com. Fantastic. Well, thank you for listening
to another episode of the Rooted Agri -Tourism
podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Liz Fidler -Murgan.
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