CEO Melissa Core-Caballo’s Call to Women: Don’t Give Up Your Dream – Part One

May 26
7 min read

“I am strong / I am invincible / I am woman /

I am woman, watch me grow”

— Helen Reddy, I Am Woman (1971)

I spoke with her on a bright Australian morning — a big beautiful pink flower behind her on screen. Wide awake eyes that light up as she speaks and gestures. Melissa Core-Caballo dances with life as she talks. In a male dominated industry, she stands out as an entrepreneur, brand strategist, CEO and co-founder of Dead Horse Branding, a global branding and artist development agency based in Nashville, Tennessee, whose clients have included Hallmark, TEDx and Lionsgate. She is also a wife and a mother.

Melissa was only eight years old when she lost her Nana. But she still feels her foundational support every day. Now she gives that same support to the creatives they represent at Dead Horse Branding.

“Don’t stop your dancing. Don’t give up.”

Those were her Nana’s last words. Her last breath. And Melissa has never forgotten them.

This is a woman’s story — a coming of age, dreams come true, never give up, succeed in a man’s world story — packed with treasure for any woman trying to make it without losing herself. If you have a gift to share with the world, Melissa is the Nana you need in your corner rooting for you.

This interview moved me. As a healer, survivor of sexual trauma, and someone who has faced my own challenges raising my son with special needs — I relate. And I have a soft spot for how her Nana was there for her. I too lost my grandmother to cancer when I was growing up, and she was everything to me.

Here we go.

THE CONVERSATION

MIRACLE BABY —

“For this I let go. It was the best thing I ever did.”

Melissa: Hi, how are you?

Kiana: I’m doing great. What a lovely background. You brought us some lovely flowers.

Melissa: Some flowers for the day. It’s actually a really nice, pretty day here in Australia, so it’s fitting. And my cup has flowers. I’m not that much of a floral person, so it’s kind of funny.

Kiana: Are you from there, then?

Melissa: Yeah, I am from here. We’re on the south coast, a couple of hours south of Sydney. I haven’t been back in 2 years. We’re filling up the cup — the love cup, the family cup, and then yes, business. It’s amazing what different environments do to our bodies, our mental health. I’m an extremist. I’m either 100% on, or really on a low hum. I don’t really have a middle ground. I come here, and I’m more on that chill zone level. And then in Nashville, I’m a little bunny rabbit on crazy batteries.

Kiana: Is everything okay with your daughter? I know that you had something going on with her.

Melissa: Yeah, she’s — oh my gosh. She’s a miracle. We’ve been through a lot, and she’s been through a lot. They said that her brain had died. And that she actually had a brain bleed. When the brain bleeds, it shrivels up, and it disappears, and it can get filled with water. So that’s what we were going in with. Every genetic testing came back fine, everything else was looking really good. When she was born and had her scans — the fluid was all still there — but her brain was completely there. It just moved around the water. She had a cyst, and didn’t have any brain damage. She didn’t have a brain bleed, she didn’t have a stroke like they thought.

And faith is a real thing. When I say faith, I believe in a higher spirit, a higher power, an energy force — and call that force God, for me. What we were told compared to where she is now is just incredible. It is a miracle.

Kiana: That’s miraculous.

Melissa: From that 18-week scan to her coming Earth side — was it the love, and the faith, and the continued energy and power that everyone put into this little girl? The prayer circles, and the friends and the family — it was unbelievable. For me, it was faith-based — as in, God, this is your mission, I’m just here as a vehicle. I still don’t know why I’m here. You do, so I’ve got to give it up. I’ve never given it up in my entire life. As faithful as I am, I always hang on for dear life. I try and steer every single ship, every single time. As much as I know not to, I do it anyway.

For this, I let go. It was the best thing I ever did.

Kiana: What a miracle life gave you.

Melissa: She’s the cutest, most beautiful, thriving little thing. She still has a shunt in her head — if something happened to that shunt, we’d have to seek help very quickly. I can deal with that.

Kiana: And look at you — you wouldn’t know that. You have a glow.

Melissa: I’m so thankful. The real gift in life — that you can’t buy or teach anyone — is realization. And growth. I see why this happened, what needed to change. As hard as every decision and turn was — it’s what my heart wanted anyway. It was a reset, letting go of things you’re hanging onto that you don’t need. Having her made everything clear. You only keep what you really need, and what really matters. I think there is something very spiritual about that.

Kiana: It sounds like it really focused you — like, here’s something that really matters, and you’re able to rally in a whole different way.

Melissa: Right. The universe knows. Absolutely knows when you’re on your wrong track. We say — Why is it so hard? or Why can’t I do this? It’s because you’re not meant to in that time, in that moment. There is a purpose. That inner self that we try to silence — it’s a real thing. It’s so funny the second I said — “Okay, not now” — everything else opened up.

Kiana: I’ll keep her in my prayers. I do energy work that I send to my clients every day and will include her.

Melissa: Thank you, that’s beautiful. We all talk about faith, and we talk about positivity, and good energy — but we don’t talk about the bad energy enough. It’s a real thing.

Kiana: It is a real thing. What you’re doing is the opposite — where you and everybody you know is together focused and envisioning and supporting — that has power. You can’t see it, but you can feel it.

Melissa: Me and my nana were like two peas in a pod. When we got the news about Amari, my best friend from Australia was in Nashville. Then she sends me this beautiful picture of Corrimal Beach — where I grew up with my nana — and says: Look at the sun. And I see, it’s an angel. It is wings. It’s a head. And she says, I wasn’t taking a photo of the sun, I was taking a photo of the water for you, but look at it. I knew then — it’s gonna be fine. I don’t need any more messages. I get it. Thank you, loud and clear.

—

NANA — “That Foundation, That Safe Spot”

Kiana: Can you tell me a little bit about your Nana and what you got from her?

Melissa: It’s amazing how someone can impact you in such a short amount of space. My nana moved into the caravan park around the corner — a luxury resort on the beach with a pool, a BMX track, a mini golf course. It was my paradise. She said, I’ll come live around the corner and help with Melissa. She was there as much as she could be. Who taught me how to ride a bike? Who took me to the beach every morning? Who taught me to look at the fishies? Who taught me strength if I fell over? My nana was very strong. Flowers, names, walks, so much — she took the time.

We redid our backyard in Nashville. I was putting in hydrangeas, and said I wish there were hibiscuses. I was being really slow watering them, and I just had this huge flashback to my nana and me holding the petals and her teaching me how to say hibiscus. She loved them, and they were all through the caravan park. All of a sudden, I was met with the reality — she was fighting cancer. And she was dying. And I didn’t know. I lost her at 8. Just turned 9.

I had this realization — I had Amari in my tummy and was going through the worst time of my life. How somebody’s absolute beauty and pure, innocent memories could be met with someone who is going through the deepest and darkest of times.

Kiana: She had no idea she was going through that, and she was able to convey all of this beauty to you. That must have been the sweetest medicine for her — to get to spend that time and share that with you.

Melissa: She was such an advocate — she was at every dance recital, every one. I look back and I remember how yellow she was in photos. Oh my gosh — her liver and kidneys were failing, and everything. Literally, the last thing she said to me. Her last breath — was “Don’t stop your dancing. Don’t give up.” Then she literally passed away 2 minutes later.

Kiana: Oh, she’s always with you, it sounds like.

Melissa: Always. To have anyone that advocates for you is so important. Anyone who is your biggest champion — when you can’t fight, when you’re thinking about stopping, but it’s all your heart wants — the universe tells you where to be and what to do.

I think of every client as me in front of that TV, trying to get where I want to get, but not having the resources to get there. I want to be my nana to everyone else. That foundation, that safe spot. That’s the energy I’m trying to give people — the feeling of some sort of security in such an uncertain place and time in their life.

Kiana: I hear you standing for the young girl in you that wanted that. In my healing work, that’s who I think of too — my little girl that wants people to feel better, safe and free. I see the little girl in you that didn’t know it wasn’t possible. That still believes.

Melissa: Right.

Melissa Core-Caballo arrived in this world against the odds — and spent the next two decades figuring out exactly what she was here to do. In Part Two, she crosses an ocean, navigates a man’s world with grit and a little creative reinvention, builds something extraordinary, and finds love in the last place she expected. Don’t miss it.