The movie Iron Man is a great action film and a great comic book film loved by a lot of people the world over. It did very well at the box office and was one of the better recent comic book movies like not only by comic book readers but by non-comic book readers as well. Iron Man is about the super genius and weapons manufacturer Tony Stark. Tony Stark is a very smart, very rich play boy who makes weapons for the United States military through his company Stark Industries. He doesn’t really have a care in the world, he does whatever he wants and doesn’t really turn a blind eye but he just doesn’t see what’s really going on with his own company. When he goes to Afghanistan to show off his latest missile the Humvee he was riding in was attacked and he was critically wounded by one of his own weapons. After he escapes from his captor and is rescued he makes a big change not only with his company but in his life as well. Instead of make weapons he now sets out to destroy, with his advanced Iron man suite, what he once made. By watching how Tony Stark is in the beginning he has the Win/Lose mentality where he is the only winner. When he is captured and realizes where his weapons are going and he makes a huge paradigm shift from being the Win/Lose rich playboy to being the Win/Win hero.
Through the first half of the movie Tony Stark is you typical rich guy. He’s in Las Vegas at an award ceremony, well he is supposed to be at the ceremony but instead he blows it off to go gamble at the casino. Here he has the Win/Lose mentality which Covey states “Win/Lose is a authoritarian approach: “I get my way; you don’t get yours” (Covey 207) and at 7 min. 45 sec. in the movie he is confronted by a reporter that starts to question whether he is a war profiteer he manages to spin and turn it around so he end up looking like the good guy and Winning the conversation and she loses because he gets what he wants from her and throws her out the next morning. When he goes to Afghanistan and finds out the very weapons he was creating to protect American lives was being used against them something inside of him changes. When he is rescued and returns to the United States turns away from the Win/Lose mentality and turns it into a Win/Win mentality which is “A frame of mind and heart that constantly seeks mutual benefit in all human interactions”. (Covey 207) When he was captured his eyes were opened and he realizes that the world needs more than just weapons that kill people, the world needs a hero and that’s what Tony Stark becomes. He makes the paradigm shift from being a being the playboy who just wants to have fun to become a man who feels he has a purpose in life to help people who can’t help themselves.
Once Tony Stark makes the shift to a Win/Win he is very proactive about doing what he feels is right. Covey says that being proactive “is why we can evaluate and learn from other experiences as well as our own. This is also why we can make and break our habits” (Covey 68) I think nothing shows this more than at the 1 hr. 28 min. make when his assistant Pepper Potts comes down a threaten to quite if he doesn’t stop doing what he is doing and he explains to her that he has finally figured out what he was meant to with his life.
I really like the character of Tony Stark not only because I’m a Marvel comic’s nerd, which I am, but I think he shows that yes people can change. He went from being some super smart rich playboy guy who only cared about himself to becoming a selfless hero for the peoples. Although it’s not quite as big as Tony Stark I have make a huge paradigm shift myself over this past quarter. No, I’m not flying around in a gold and red suite saving the world but I have made a change in the way I study and do my homework. I have passed classes before in college but I have never done this well and I have never passed all of my classes in a quarter either. This will be the first time I have done it and I think I have done it very well. Yes, like Tony Stark I think I made a huge paradigm shift but the only difference is the one I made was real and it will help me out for a long time to come.
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