Building Your Payment Story: Are You the Hero or the Guide with Host Joe Casali
Wrestling Payments Podcast: Season 3 - Episode 09
In this episode of Wrestling Payments, host Joseph Casali draws surprising parallels between professional wrestling and the evolution of payment systems. After watching WrestleMania 41, he experienced an "aha moment" recognizing that successful payment transformations follow the same narrative structure as compelling wrestling storylines.
The episode explores Donald Miller's StoryBrand framework, breaking down how every story, including payment innovations like check conversion to ACH and the digital transformation journey, features a character who faces challenges and needs guidance to achieve success. From Nacha's early rules for check conversion to today's AI and crypto developments, each payment evolution represents its own hero's journey.
Listeners are challenged to identify their role in the payment industry narrative: Are you the hero navigating change, or the guide helping others transform? The host suggests that recognizing your place in the story can help financial professionals better navigate the continuous evolution of payment systems and build meaningful payment stories.
Download Episode Transcript
Guest-at-a-Glance
💡Name: Joseph Casali
💡What he does: Executive Vice President
💡Company: NEACH (New England Automated Clearing House) 💡Noteworthy: Payments industry veteran focused on financial innovation and regulatory insight
💡 Where to find him: LinkedIn
Key Insights
Every Industry Evolution Follows a Classic Story Structure
The payment industry's evolution, from paper checks to digital transformation, follows the same narrative arc as classic storytelling. Just as Donald Miller's StoryBrand framework outlines, payment innovations begin with a character (organization) facing a problem (inefficient processes), meeting a guide (industry experts or associations like NACHA), receiving a plan (new technology or methodology), and taking action that leads to success or avoids failure. Viewing payment evolution through this lens gives professionals a framework to anticipate challenges and recognize their role in the larger industry story.
Identifying Whether You're a Hero or Guide Changes Your Strategy
Your role in the payment industry story—hero navigating challenges or guide helping others succeed—fundamentally changes your approach to innovation and problem-solving. Heroes face obstacles directly, implement solutions, and undergo transformation. Guides offer wisdom and experience to help others navigate challenges. Many payment professionals mistakenly position themselves as heroes when they could create more impact as guides. Being a guide—like Yoda in Star Wars—often creates more lasting impact than heroic action, especially for those with extensive industry experience who can mentor others through digital transformation or regulatory changes.
Success Stories in Payments Are Never-Ending Narratives
Payment innovation represents a continuous narrative where each success leads to the next challenge, unlike traditional stories with definitive endings. Innovations like check digitization and ACH systems solved immediate problems but created new storylines and challenges. Completing one transformation doesn't provide a permanent "happy ending" but instead opens the next chapter. This perpetual evolution requires viewing projects as episodes in an ongoing industry saga. Embracing this never-ending narrative perspective helps maintain adaptability, avoid complacency after successes, and stay prepared for constant changes driven by technology, regulations, or market demands.
Episode Highlights
Wrestling's Storytelling Structure Inspires Payment Perspective [00:01:00]
A personal experience watching WrestleMania 41 sparked a revelation connecting wrestling narratives to payment industry evolution. This unique lens views payment systems as stories with heroes, challenges, and transformations. The connection between 36 years in payments and lifelong wrestling fandom provides context for a creative framework that bridges these seemingly different worlds.
"I had an aha moment during WrestleMania, and the aha moment was that it was a great story. It was brilliant the way they executed this story, and it led me to think, what's your payment story? Do you have a payment story? I've been watching wrestling prior to the first WrestleMania. I've been in payments for 36 years this year. So they've kind of run parallel and it's really fascinating."
The Historical ACH Story: From Paper to Electronic [00:02:00]
A concrete example of payment evolution storytelling emerges in the transformation of check processing during the 1990s. NACHA developed rules to convert paper checks into electronic information, creating a significant industry shift. This historical perspective demonstrates how payment innovations follow narrative arcs with challenges, transformations, and continued evolution as new technologies emerge.
"Back during the 90s, NACHA started making a bunch of rules around the way to convert checks. They figured out the legal way to take the check and instead of it being a check, it became a source document, an information resource. You could take the information off the check, send it through the ACH. You didn't need the check anymore. Very innovative."
Facing Challenges in Your Payment Transformation Journey [00:10:35]
Payment professionals encounter numerous obstacles during modernization efforts. External factors like competition, regulatory changes, and unexpected market shifts create tension in the payment story. Understanding these challenges helps professionals anticipate and prepare for their own digital transformation journeys, emphasizing the importance of resilience and adaptability throughout the process.
"What tests are you gonna face during your story? It can include technical issues, regulatory issues, competition. Is a competitor coming in, taking so much of the market that there's not enough left to string together and compete? That's the negative. The guide's gonna tell you the bad things that are happening as well as could there be an alliance formed?"
Recognizing When You're the Guide, Not the Hero [00:15:40]
Many payment professionals may need to reassess their professional identity. There's value in recognizing when you might be more effective as a guide for others rather than positioning yourself as the hero. This perspective shift can fundamentally change approaches to innovation, leadership, and industry collaboration, creating more meaningful impact within the payments ecosystem.
"If you look around the room and you don't see the person who's doing this, you are that person. Maybe you're a guide. Maybe you're a guide in the story. And that's not a negative. You're Yoda. How can you get better than Yoda? You are Paul Heyman in wrestling, you are the guide. You're the advisor, the wise man."
To hear this episode and many more like it, subscribe to Wrestling Payments on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere else you listen to podcasts, or listen above.