Bridging the gap between
financial expertise and the clients it's meant to serve

My Retirement Network was built to connect both sides of the conversation around money.

On one side are individuals trying to make sense of financial decisions. On the other are the advisors guiding them.

The gap between the two is where most confusion—and missed decisions—happens.

My Retirement Network addresses that gap in two ways:

  • For individuals, it provides clear, practical financial education focused on everyday decisions like budgeting, saving, and understanding how money works.
  • For financial advisors, it provides training focused on communication—helping advisors translate complex planning into conversations that clients can actually understand and act on.

 

 

"Most financial confusion happens in the gap between what advisors know and what clients hear."

A MESSAGE FROM OUR FOUNDER

Melissa Caro, CFP®

Founder, My Retirement Network  ·  Mel CK Consulting

I've spent my entire career watching smart people fail to connect.

Growing up with a single mother, financial independence wasn't a concept I learned in school — it was the thing I organized my life around. That drive took me to NYU Stern School of Business, then immediately to Goldman Sachs, and through the next 25 years across equity trading, capital markets, and research sales. In those environments, communication isn't a soft skill. It's the job. You learn very quickly that precision and clarity are the same thing.

When I moved into wealth management, I started working directly with RIAs — on marketing strategy, practice management, technology design, and advisor development. That last one became my focus. Under Mel CK Consulting, I've spent years training advisors on the skills that are too often overlooked: how to listen for what a client isn't saying, how to explain a complex concept without losing the room, how to recognize the behavioral signals that tell you a client is scared even when they're nodding along.

The advisors who build lasting client relationships aren't always the ones who know the most. They're the ones whose clients feel genuinely understood.

I launched My Retirement Network originally as a consumer platform — free, plain-language financial education for people navigating retirement with or without an advisor. No jargon. No assumptions about what you already know. Just the basics, explained the way a trusted friend would explain them.

That work sharpened something I already believed from years of advisor training: consumers aren't confused because they lack intelligence. They're confused because most financial communication is built to impress rather than to inform. The gap I'd been helping advisors close on one side — I could now see it clearly from the other side too.

My Retirement Network became the bridge. The advisor training I'd been doing through Mel CK Consulting found a permanent home here, alongside the consumer education work — because you can't truly train advisors without staying close to what clients actually think, fear, and misunderstand about money. The two sides inform each other constantly.

I'm a CFP® with over 30 years in this industry. I've published in Advisor Perspectives and RIABiz, been a guest on the Healthy Advisor podcast, and I send a weekly newsletter to consumers on the basics of money management. I train advisors individually and in groups, and I keep one foot in the consumer world deliberately — because the best training stays connected to what clients are actually experiencing.