WonderTour

Welcome to Lead Wisely by Wondertor.

Let's start with a tough question about leadership.

Brian, we're looking at the movie Iron Man.

And one of the things that sticks out to me right from the beginning is, is Tony Stark
really a leader in this movie?

I'd love to hear your perspective.

No, that is a great question.

It was fun revisiting this movie after a while, one of the canonical pieces of the Marvel
history.

This is a great movie.

It's a lot of fun.

Tony has a lot of really great characteristics in this movie, right?

He is brilliant with technology and with inventing solutions to his problems.

He is brilliant with technology and with inventing solutions to his problems.

He has a curious mindset.

He's exploring the boundaries of what's possible.

He runs a bunch of really great experiments.

He's got a really wonderful sense of research and development about how to iterate your
way to building up technology into better and better things and bootstrapping your way

into something that works really well.

The dojo that he's built for himself in multiple contexts in the movie is great.

He's got lot of admiral characteristics.

I would argue in context of the magnanimous leader concept that we've been developing over
the course of the Wonder Tour podcast and videos, no, he's not a leader.

He certainly in the course of this movie arguably becomes a hero, maybe to the Luke
Skywalker level of being a hero, but he's never, he doesn't display any of the

characteristics of a leader.

Certainly at the beginning of the movie and even by the end, when we talk about
leadership, we talk about

the superpower of vision, of having a purpose and aligning actions toward that purpose
that is larger than yourself.

We talk about the superpower of nurturing, about taking care of other people, about
helping them grow, about helping them achieve their potential.

We talk about the superpower of compassion, about caring about the vision and about the
others more than you care about yourself to the extent that you're willing to take actions

that don't necessarily benefit you.

Whether it's...

the Obi -Wan or Gandalf sacrifice or whether it's just the hard work every day of doing
things that are not for your own glory.

And at the start of this movie, Tony has none of those things.

His vision is arguably inherited from his father, blindly.

Like, we build weapons because that's what we do.

And I'm really good at building weapons and building weapons must be a good thing, right?

And we see him routinely ignoring and belittling and abusing

all of the people around him for his own amusement.

And we don't see him ever do anything that he doesn't want to do.

And we don't see him ever do anything that he doesn't want to do.

Yeah, even the way that he runs his company we never see him leading anybody.

Yeah, even the way that he runs his company we never see him leading anybody.

It's always in fact that he is being led by somebody.

He just happens to be the heir to the company.

He happens to be the lead tech, the lead architect engineer, whatever, right?

He's the guy who develops all of the different technology and pushes them forward.

He's the ideas guy, but he's never the guy who's actually leading anybody.

I would argue that what we instead see is he is

pretty heavily led around by Potts and certainly he is being led by Obie.

And we'll talk about this a little bit more in ensuing sections, but I don't know how much
he realizes that.

think perhaps he's okay with some aspects of it and because he's just here to have fun,
here to create cool stuff, here to enjoy his life.

But in other ways, I don't even know that he knows that that's happening.

I think that it's easy to fall into the trap if you're Tony of thinking that you are
running your company.

where maybe let's contrast that to Bruce Wayne or to Batman.

And specifically if we look at the Nolan movies, because that's what we love to talk about
Chris Nolan on Wonder Tour.

So if we look at that, Bruce Wayne or, you know, Batman really becomes his persona by the
end of the trilogy.

He doesn't want to be Bruce Wayne anymore.

He shirks his responsibilities to Wayne Enterprises.

He is...

Completely absent he turns over it to Fox which eventually even that falls apart by the
third movie and yet I think you could argue that His character arc He becomes a leader

during the first movie While he is making sacrifices while he is trying to atone for the
sins of his family much like Tony is doing he

Is it just out there doing things because it's cool or for himself?

He's out there doing things because he sees people who are in need, who need his help.

That's why he's doing it.

And so we see some of those traits, like you were talking about, Brian, like compassion
and integrity and things like that, that Tony doesn't really exhibit yet.

He will later, but Bruce exhibits those earlier on.

again, just it's fun to compare and contrast Luke Skywalker to Tony Stark, to Bruce Wayne.

DC versus Marvel billionaire tech enabled superhero playboy is pretty easy, right?

You're absolutely right.

Yeah, and that's actually a really good way of looking at it is I think that Tony,
throughout this movie, even by the end, we never really see him enabling anybody else.

Yeah, and that's actually a really good way of looking at it is I think that Tony,
throughout this movie, even by the end, we never really see him enabling anybody else.

We never really see him training anybody else.

We never see him, you know, even to the extent that he,

is able to have some self -sacrifice, it's in the service of cleaning up his own messes.

He sort of incidentally helps some oppressed people, but that's not why he's there.

He didn't go there for them.

He went there for himself.

And it's because of the mess that he's made.

So he's starting to take responsibility, and he's portrayed as becoming heroic in the
process.

But I think it's interesting that, he's in charge of this giant technology company and
he's this brilliant inventor.

And we never see him interacting with any other humans in that context.

Right?

Like he's got a couple things where he's like, Hey Pepper, can you come hold this one
thing?

Come pull this thing into my chest.

Right.

But it's just him and his robots.

When, when his, you know, mentor betrayed father figure, OB.

is trying to recreate the arc reactor with the other engineers from Stark.

It's evident that they've never talked to him.

He's never trained them.

know, these other people that are engineers in his own company have not learned anything
from him.

They, you know, he hasn't passed on any knowledge or any expertise.

They can't even come close to duplicating something that he did, you know, in a week in a
cave in this context, right?

Lots of fun superhero movie things going on here, but the way he's portrayed is very much
of the rogue genius and there's

And that's very different from what we, the kind of leadership persona and skill set and
impact on the world that we're trying to craft, that we're talking about as the successful

And that's very different from what we, the kind of leadership persona and skill set and
impact on the world that we're trying to craft, that we're talking about as the successful

magnanimous leader.

And a lot of the problems that appear in this movie are because of that leadership void,
right?

The leadership void of Tony allows all of the bad things that happen.

Sometimes it actually kind of causes them

That's great, Brian.

And we're going to talk about that the rest of this episode.

How do we counteract that if we're in a spot in a certain facet of our life, or maybe even
in our entire life where we might be more like Tony spoilers, I'll share a story like that

at the end.

what do we do to get out of that spot?

So that's what we're going to talk about next, Brian.

But first the intro.

Hi, I'm Brian Notwell.

And we are on a journey to become better leaders by touring fantastic worlds and inspiring
lore by going on a wonder tour.

We connect leadership concepts to story contexts because it sticks to our brains better.

You can find out more at wondertorpodcast .com.

or on YouTube.

Okay.

Yeah.

So if we have, I think, without too much difficulty established that Tony is nothing
resembling a leader at the start of this movie and really isn't much of a leader, even by

the end, he successfully transitions from being self -centered schmuck to self -centered
heroic figure.

who are our leadership examples in this movie?

What, what is, what does leadership look like in this Iron Man movie and how does Tony
break out of his, it's all about me.

set.

Is it just circumstances?

Well, I think like most of us, Tony breaks out because he has this experience that changes
the way that he views the world.

It changes his perspective of everything.

And that experience obviously starts with his capture as the movie frames it at the
beginning by these terrorists and he's in this cave for this month.

But that in and of itself probably isn't enough for Tony to have this realization.

Of course he has the moment where he sees the Stark Industries.

logo on the missile next to him when he's lying on the ground, shocked.

That's great, but there's more to the realization.

The realization that what he has created is being used to do harm is not the full
realization.

think for Tony, for him to become the kind of man that makes the sacrifice that he makes
in the first Avengers movie, and of course in Endgame,

there has to be a spark.

And I would argue that that spark is Jensen.

Because in this, again, Brian, you set up beautifully that Tony's more of a Luke
Skywalker.

And when we see a Luke Skywalker type character, he's not really a leader, more so a hero.

What we want to look for is as magnanimous leaders, where's the Obi -Wan?

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, it's a time -honored movie trope, but it's also a...

a powerful thing in our actual lives, right?

The person who is an example of a different way to be, right?

So Tony's experience, as you say, sets him up to question a lot of his assumptions, right?

What he thought he was doing with his life, what he thought the purpose of his technology
was, you know, and just to kind of opens his eyes to like, what's it like to be on the

other end, but then what do you do about it?

How do you behave in the face of, you know, of...

terrible things, how you behave in the face of questioning your assumptions.

Really, he only has this one sympathetic voice in the movie that gives him an opportunity
to think about things in a different way.

it's, and Jensen has some really great lines about purpose, but he also just by his basic
actions, like takes care of this person that he doesn't know, you know, saves his life and

then risked own life to help him get out, you know, risked his own life in the face of,

would have been a lot easier for him to collaborate with the captors than to collaborate
with Tony.

it's beautiful.

Like you said, we could have chosen so many different moments to talk about here, but
Jensen, I mean, he has these quotes, right?

He says, so you're a man who has everything and nothing.

And he's talking about Tony doesn't have a family, right?

He doesn't have, he's not married.

He doesn't have kids.

He's, you know, he's lost his parents as we find out later on, right?

That's kind of the immediate context, but the, but the real context is like, you don't
have a purpose.

Like you don't have any reason to be better than you are.

You don't have any reason to do the things that you're doing.

And this is, this really is at a moment where probably Tony needs to hear that, but that's
also, I think a thing that we can all be thinking about, like, you know, who are.

Who are we doing things for?

From where does our purpose derive?

And that doesn't necessarily mean to be something spiritual.

It's just like, who are you taking care of?

Who is benefiting from your actions?

And Jensen really challenges him with that.

And of course, in movie fashion, of course, he is killed in the process of the first act
of the movie here.

But the reveal that he didn't even have anything that he was going back to.

Right, it didn't necessarily change his, you he sort of transferred his caring to Tony
just as in context, like, because that's who he was, that's how he's portrayed.

But that's a lesson that Tony really needed to learn.

He didn't have that example in his life.

don't have, you see, he has lots of people caring for him, right?

He's got pots, he's got happy, but he's got Rhodey who's sort of shepherding him around,
but he doesn't have anybody that he respects.

that he observes caring that he wants to emulate until this point in the movie.

Yeah, it's a beautiful passing of the torch again, just like Obi -Wan and Darth Vader,
where you have Obi -Wan making the sacrifice and Luke watching so that Obi -Wan dies so

that Luke can escape and he willingly makes the sacrifice.

And of course that moment ends up transforming both Darth Vader and also Luke.

And it's only in the infinite wisdom of Obi -Wan that he could see that

Like it's not his fight at this point.

He needs to be the one who stays in.

And that's what we see with Yinsen.

Yinsen said this was always the plan.

He, Yinsen is the wise man who can see beyond what the young, passionate, energetic, and
again, lots of great traits that Tony has, but the traits that Yinsen has are the traits

of an actual leader of somebody who can make a difference in the world.

versus Tony has a lot of power, but what is that power actually doing?

Right.

And so I think we talked about it a little bit in the pre -show, right?

And so I think we talked about it a little bit in the pre -show, right?

The arc of this story is Tony turning into a hero, right?

The arc of the story is everything from self -centered Tony with know, glass of scotch and
the Hummer talking about the Maxim Cup of Girls to Tony standing on the podium at the end

saying, am Iron Man.

But in order to get to the I am Iron Man, somewhere in the middle of this movie, he has to
realize he can't be Tony anymore.

He can't be that version of Tony Stark anymore.

got to let some of those things go, or he's got to pick up some purpose to align to in
order to get there.

got to let some of those things go, or he's got to pick up some purpose to align to in
order to get there.

So what does that look like?

So what does that look like?

How do we do that?

How do we examine ourselves to decide where we maybe need more purpose or need to alter
the focus?

Well, I want to touch on one thing here that happens because a lot of this stuff feels
like it in my life, some of it just happens to you where you get put into a crucible in

one way or another and that crucible then forms you.

This seems to be a shared experience.

Hence why, you know, books like the crucible are extremely popular and there is a like
heavy motifs of refining, refining by fire, even if it's humans and not just metals need

to be refined by fire.

there is concepts of, know, suffering is partly the point because suffering and pain is
within reason at least is how human beings are grown into the type of people who can be

like Jensen, who can stand in and make that sacrifice.

And I just, have to call out this moment because I just am seeing it right now and it's
beautiful that the obvious point, the obvious mountain top we could look at is

And I just, have to call out this moment because I just am seeing it right now and it's
beautiful that the obvious point, the obvious mountain top we could look at is

on the way out when Jensen says this was always the plan and he runs in and he does the
Leroy Jenkins and protects Iron Man so that he can escape.

And then you have this emotion from Tony that he actually cared for this guy and he
actually believed in the values that this guy believed in and he understood him.

So it's easy to say that it's the moment is when Jensen sacrifices himself and dies so
Tony can escape.

But what if we look back at the previous moment when they come in there the day before and
they're investigating him and they are, you know, Tony's over here saying that he's

But what if we look back at the previous moment when they come in there the day before and
they're investigating him and they are, you know, Tony's over here saying that he's

building the Jericho missile.

And then Jensen is defending him, defending him, even though Tony is refusing to tell
Jensen what's actually up most of the time up until this point.

Jensen also asks him and Tony a lot of the time isn't even being fully transparent with
Jensen, but he holds the coal out.

And he's claiming that he's going to put the coal in Jensen's mouth and Jensen, you know,
to Tony, that is terrible.

And he's squirming and you see Jensen there.

And of course that's that suffering is not lost on him.

And yet he's willing to accept it.

Right, yeah, you're right, there's a moment there where Tony at least sticks his neck out
for somebody else.

He's like, no, no, no, I need this guy.

He's a good assistant, right?

That's kind how he passes it off, right?

But yeah, that's maybe the first time in the entire movie where we see him taking any
action on behalf of anybody else.

Yeah, and it only happens because of Jensen's character and it's that character that we
cultivate, that we put out into the world that allows others to have the boldness to grow

where you put somebody else's growth before your own growth like Jensen does for Tony that
allows Tony to become the hero of the universe basically.

Right.

Yeah.

And so we have all these fun, you know, tech inversions, you know, about, you know, about
the, starts with technology to, that is just for killing people.

Right.

And then he has to, out of self -defense, build technology to keep himself alive.

And then he sort of bootstraps that into, okay, what do I do with this now?

Like, how do I, how do I benefit other people with technology?

Right.

So it's, it's, it's a, it's a well laid out progression, right?

It's a very satisfying.

silly little comic book movie.

silly little comic book movie.

But these are real things, right?

These are real leadership challenges and these are real problems that we all run into is
like, where is my purpose?

These are real leadership challenges and these are real problems that we all run into is
like, where is my purpose?

Like, who am I helping?

The thing that I'm working on, what is it actually gonna do in the world?

And have I spent even time thinking about that?

We probably don't do that as often as we should.

Agreed, agreed.

We all have a bit to learn from the Jensen, the Gandalf, the Obi -Wan.

And I think it starts with making sure that we have those people in our lives and that we
seek out those people.

I have tremendous empathy for those that I come across that are trying to do the right
thing.

They're trying to have good character and yet they've never had a mentor like that in
their life.

They've never had somebody who would bend over backwards for them.

They've never had somebody who would put their

their development before that person's development.

And of course it starts with learning at the foot of somebody like that and ends with
becoming somebody like that for others.

And it's not a one, two step progression in order to be able to do that.

It is a lifelong finding your Obi -Wan and being an Obi -Wan to somebody else.

So what is that?

let's talk practical application.

What's the first step?

What does that look like in your life to be able to periodically re -examine your vision?

Yeah.

So that's where I can bring in a good personal story here in my life.

So I, in my early twenties, mid twenties, like a lot of people do, doesn't excuse it, but
I kind of just went after the Tony Stark lifestyle.

So I, in my early twenties, mid twenties, like a lot of people do, doesn't excuse it, but
I kind of just went after the Tony Stark lifestyle.

You know, I can build things.

I can be good at business.

I can drive outcomes.

And when I have free time, I can seek after the partying lifestyle.

I can go and find things that give me immediate gratification.

And so I did that for a handful of years and I went off and honestly I drifted from my
purpose.

I still had a semblance of an idea that I wanted to do good in the world and that what
that looked like was helping others.

But the most challenging part when you're in this constant cycle of just working yourself
to death and then any free minute that you get trying to have as much fun as possible.

Kind of just back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

Eventually it wears you out.

And if you're fortunate, like I was, then maybe you're stuck up late in the middle of the
night and you just can't go to sleep.

You can't get the anxious thoughts out of your head, but they're driving you in a certain
direction.

That direction is how are you actually helping people?

If you are the type of person who would say that you believe

that your mission is to help others so that they can have it better than you have it.

What is the mechanisms by what you're doing that?

What is the evidence that you're doing that?

Because if you could, that was where I got to, I could not explain the evidence.

I could not explain any mechanisms and it caused great conflict in me.

It was haunting me.

I would truly say it was haunting me.

And that realization that I'm not who I think I am.

I think that's the same realization in a way of what Tony Stark is having, that he had
this image of himself, that he was doing great things for the world through his

innovation.

And in reality, it was hardly innovation at all.

It was just doing cool stuff and having a good time, which if you can't explain how that's
making a better world, then it's probably making a worse world.

Yeah, no, that's powerful.

And I think I like the way you framed that as how can I explain it?

Not, I doing it?

Rigorous self honesty is desirable and really difficult, but thinking about it, trying to
see yourself through the eyes of somebody else and how would you explain it?

Like if you had asked Tony Stark to explain to Rhodey in this movie, right?

the Air Force sidekick that he just keeps sort of abusing and abasing throughout the
course of the movie.

If you ask him to think about how he looks through Rhodey's eyes, if you ask him to think
about what are all the things that Pepper is doing to keep him basically functional and

fed and able to just go live in his little man cave and do his fun things.

If he was able to think about that a little bit, he probably would view himself in very
different light.

It would cause him to question some things, right?

In this in movie fashion, he has a much more dramatic set of resetting his expectations.

But I think any of us can do that.

Like look at the people around you and how would those people say you are helping them?

How would those people say you are benefiting the world?

I think that would be, I think that would be really powerful.

And could maybe challenge you to recalibrate your, your alignment.

Yeah, there's a quote from Socrates that's in some of Plato's writings.

It's in when Socrates goes to the tribunal trial, whatever you want to call it, at least
as the way Plato explains it, where Socrates is basically given the choice of stop

practicing philosophy in the way that you're practicing it, or we will put you to death.

And he has the moment where he first he pleads his case, or Plato pleads it for him again,
this is all kind of confusing how this

what actually happened here, but the point is that it's really useful wisdom that's being
conveyed to us.

And in this story about Socrates, he gives this kind of monologue, and in the end, his
final words are, life not evaluated is not worth living.

Hmm.

And his point is for me not to stop and think, not to practice philosophy in a way that
challenges me, that challenges the world, that's a fate worse than death.

So he chooses death because he says, sure, I could go in his monologue.

says like, sure, I could go and I could go into the, you know, live in a small town and be
quiet or something like that.

But that basically he sums it up by saying that would be a fate worse than death.

And I'm assuming that most of you who listen to

wonder tour are thinking that a life not evaluated.

It's not worth living though at times I've been guilty of it as I explained living a life
that wasn't evaluated and we all probably have especially in just smaller facets of our

life.

Yeah, no, it's, the next decision is equally hard, right?

Recognizing that you're not aligned with the purpose that you want or recognizing that all
of the habits you've built and all the structure you've built of your life maybe didn't

add up to the impact you wanted.

Like the next step is deciding which pieces of that to blow up is really hard.

And I've been experiencing that recently too.

But yeah, it's the only way out.

of that is through the only way to do it is to first figure out what you want the purpose
to look like and what you know, what kind of leader you want to be, who are the people

that you're trying to help.

And then you can start to figure out what the steps are available to you.

All right, Brian, this has been great.

We had some non -conventional takeaways here.

You we looked at Iron Man almost 100 episodes ago, more than 100 episodes ago on Wonder
Tour in the audio podcast form.

And I thought, this movie, it's a Marvel movie.

It's fairly linear.

It's a classic hero's journey.

And yet we found new ways to look at it.

I just love going on that sort of a journey with you.

So let's hit some key takeaways.

So the key takeaway number one that we had is that you have to evaluate your own
leadership traits.

So the key takeaway number one that we had is that you have to evaluate your own
leadership traits.

So we talked about this in the case of the practical application and how I had to evaluate
where I was at and am I actually making an impact on the world?

Am I actually a leader?

And I think Tony had to go through the same journey in his experiences.

Yeah.

And then that may require you to let go of some things that, you know, you, that you were
very attached to as parts of your personality or parts of your lifestyle.

And, of course, in the context of this movie, a lot of the conflict is that he's trying to
force his organization to let go of some things.

Right.

But that's that, that may be a real thing too.

So think we should definitely look for those, look for those opportunities and be aware of
the scope of that difficulty.

But

Just asking the question, that's the big one.

And the other one too, of course, is just the, the other good takeaway is the power of the
example, the power of the mentor, the power of the person who's there showing you what it

looks like to do it the other way is difficult to overstate how much of an impact that can
have on us.

we've all had some of those people who like, okay, yeah, that's better than the way I'm
doing it.

yeah, yeah, I met with one of those people yesterday, Brian, our French Shabow, who in a
lot of ways Shabow just does things on another level of what I am capable of doing.

And every time I get to sit down with him and learn from him, it is an absolute joy and it
challenges me.

So yeah, having, having wise mentors.

And if you don't have those right now, don't be discouraged.

You reach out to people, go to the types of places that those people are going to be at.

The great thing, and we always say this on Wonder Tour, is wise mentors, they are very
willing to mentor people who want to change, who want to be better, who want to make an

impact.

Be willing to go and ask those people to support you, even if you don't know them that
well, because if you are earnestly seeking magnanimous character, more often than not,

that person will find the time.

No, that's really cool.

I like that.

All right.

Good discussion today.

Thank you so much for this one.

We will come back next time for episode 110, part two of the Iron Man story.

And we'll talk a little bit about the implications of technology.

We're kind of wrapping up our arc on humans and technology.

And so we'll talk about what this movie has to tell us about what you should do with
technology, as opposed to where Tony started with some things that you maybe shouldn't.

So.

Looking forward to that.

In the meantime, just remember, as always, character is death.