I didn't grow up believing money was everything. I grew up understanding that money was a tool & that learning how to use that tool could change the direction of a life.
Growing up, I watched both of my parents work relentlessly. My mother often worked multiple jobs, while my father spent long days building businesses, leading teams, educating others, and creating opportunities. As his years of hard work began to pay off, he taught me something that stayed with me: having more doesn't mean you stop understanding the value of earning, building, and taking responsibility for what you have.
My father became my greatest teacher. I grew up watching him give presentations to rooms full of people: educating, leading, guiding, and being a source of support to anyone who crossed his path. In my eyes, he knew it all! I didn't care that Google existed; if I wanted to know something, I asked Dad. Business, money, life = he was my blueprint.
In my twenties, those conversations started becoming even more important. He was teaching me lessons about adulthood, business, money, and building a future of my own. He taught me so much of what I know. There just wasn't enough time. But I am who I am
My father passed away on April 19, 2021. But I am who I am today because of him.
Suddenly, the person I had always turned to for guidance wasn't there anymore. I had been on my own since I was 18, but this was different. I wasn't simply learning independence. I was learning how to navigate adulthood, grief, bills, responsibilities, and financial decisions without the person who had always helped me make sense of the world.
For the next two years, I stepped away from the traditional rhythm of working and focused on learning, healing, and figuring out what came next. I lived largely from my savings and investments while continuing to learn about money, investing, and myself.
And somewhere in that season, I started asking a question that would eventually become the foundation for Lead To Prosperity:
"Why aren't we taught how to do life?"
Why don't we learn how credit works before we're offered credit cards? Why aren't we taught how to manage money before bills arrive? Why don't we understand insurance, investing, taxes, estate planning, or how to protect what we've spent our lives building?
What happens to the person whose parents don't know these things themselves? What happens when the person who was supposed to teach you isn't there?
I knew what that felt like.
Learning Money All Over Again
My financial journey hasn't been perfect.
I've made money. I've lost money. I've rebuilt and repeated the cycle. Eventually, I had to confront something deeper than how much money I was earning:
I didn't fully understand my relationship with money or how to keep and grow what I made. I had developed a bad relationship with money, & my financial blueprint needed to change. One of the books my father had recommended to me, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, helped me begin looking at the beliefs and patterns I had developed around money differently.
So I started studying: financial literacy, personal development, saving, investing, insurance, asset diversification, compound growth, wealth preservation, & the psychology behind our financial decisions.
My introduction to investing actually began with my father, too. In 2017, he brought Bitcoin to my attention as it approached $20,000. I entered the crypto world at quite the interesting time & learned some expensive lessons along the way. Let's just say I was late to the bull party & got caught in a bear trap.
But those experiences taught me something important: Earning money is only one part of financial prosperity. You also have to understand it, manage it, protect it, & learn how to make it work beyond you.
My career in insurance added another layer. I saw firsthand how much families can lose simply because no one taught them about protection, beneficiaries, life insurance, estate planning, & preparing for what happens when someone is no longer here.
That became deeply personal for me.
My father spent his life building. Losing him showed me that
"Building a legacy and protecting a legacy are two different things."
I became determined to understand both.
Why I Created Lead To Prosperity
Lead To Prosperity was created for the person who feels like they're supposed to understand money but nobody ever taught them.
For the person starting over. For the person intimidated by financial terminology. For families trying to build something different for the next generation. For communities that haven't always had equal access to understandable financial education.
And for the person staring at adulthood thinking:
“Why didn't anybody teach me this?”
I don't believe financial education should make people feel embarrassed about what they don't know. It should make them feel empowered by what they can learn next.
That's why Lead To Prosperity is designed to take complicated financial concepts and make them approachable, practical, and easier to understand; so you can ask questions, learn at your own pace, & make more informed decisions about your future.
What Prosperity Means to Me
Prosperity isn't simply having a lot of money.
My faith has shaped how I define it.
Joshua 1:8 speaks about meditating on God's Word, walking according to it, & then making one's way prosperous and successful.
To me, prosperity means living with an overflowing cup: rich in faith, rich in love, rich in family and community, rich in knowledge, rich in purpose, and equipped with the financial understanding to build, protect, give, and leave something meaningful behind.
My father's life planted the seed. My own journey taught me how to nurture what he planted. That seed sprouted and grew into Lead To Prosperity.
— Melissa Caboverde
Founder, Lead To Prosperity
“Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.”