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Doctor of Leadership in Global Perspectives: Crafting Ministry in an Interconnected World

Soup Questions

Written by: on March 30, 2025

The older I get, the more I realize how wrong I can really be. There, I said it. Coming face to face with our humanness can sometimes feel like a punch in the face. Bobby Duffy, in his book Why We’re Wrong About Nearly Everything: A Theory of Human Misunderstanding [1], does a fantastic job of helping us to unpack the delusions we live under and the biases and heuristics that guide us down our somewhat dimly lit pathways in life. I am enamored by Duffy’s approach to the human psyche. I am especially smitten by his understanding of how our minds work as driven by our emotions, experiences, and information collection and analysis.

Duffy’s use of story as an extension of data analysis is superlative. At heart, I am a storyteller. It is what I do, how I think, and how I communicate reality and truth to those I come into contact with around the world. There is an old Hopi American Indian proverb, “Those who tell the stories rule the world.” I have held to this proverb as a tool for communicating reality for years. Duffy has mastered the art form in the simplest of ways.

As I read through his data projections, his “perils of perspective,” studies, and his numerous surveys, I was amazed at the cogent manner in which he has learned to ask good questions. I have long held the opinion that a significant part of the problem of understanding is that most people I know do not ask good questions. I tell those whom I disciple with regularity that “if we ask the wrong questions, we will always get the wrong answers.” I make a habit of helping the young followers of Christ learn to ask better questions.

In the film “Finding Forrester,” William Forrester uses the term “soup questions” to refer to questions that are personal and meaningful to the individual asking them instead of broad, universal inquiries. The concept of “soup questions” highlights the importance of asking meaningful questions to the individual and can lead to personal growth and understanding. In its purest sense, Duffy has gotten to a place where he debunks many of the problems of misunderstanding by uncovering the finer details of asking “soup questions.”

I was also intrigued by the notion that the sources of our knowledge and the emotional attachments to their ideas can have a staggering impact on how we understand how the world works. I must admit that at 65 years old, I have believed for half a century that the Great Wall of China was the only man-made structure that could be seen from space with the naked eye. As a matter of fact, I took Duffy to task. I researched several other sources to confirm the veracity of whether or not the notion that the Great Wall of China was the only man-made structure visible from outer space. In fact, it is not true. I may not sleep tonight.
I was also fascinated by the view of the sources’ impact and their effect on our depths of understanding or delusion. Recently, I heard my 8-year-old granddaughter tell another child that 97% of all statistics were made up on the spot. I asked her where she had heard that. She said that her mother, my daughter, had told her that many times over the years. It was an expression I had used as a joke with my daughters while they were growing up. I would even change the percentage to liven things up. I would change it to 94% or 93% of all statistics were made up to prove my point. The fact that I was their dad and granddad was all that was needed to make what to them seemed like a factual reality be, in fact, just that.
If nothing else, this work by Duffy has reminded me how diligent we must be to guard our minds from untruth and to be good students in life. I have been a student all of my life. I think I have believed many untruths. Whether they were because of my biases, the plethora of heuristics I have stored up, or just a simple neglect of words, I know that I have been a lesser man because of it. The entire theory of human misunderstanding is worthy of further exploration. The world is in a crisis of truth, reality, and understanding. Understanding the genesis of our misunderstanding is a very worthy subject of study and ought to be included not only at the university level of study but it ought to be included for students at the High School level.

[1]  Bobby Duffy. Why We’re Wrong about Nearly Everything: A Theory of Human Misunderstanding. First US edition. (New York: Basic Books, 2019).

[2]. Van Sant, Gus, dir. Finding Forrester. Columbia Pictures, 2000.

[3]. Sanderson, Brandon. “The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon.” [The Storyteller Agency]. [March 2, 2021]. Accessed [March 30, 2025]. [The Storyteller Agency URL].

[4]. Baird S., Christopher S., author of The Top 50 Science Questions with Surprising Answers and Associate Professor of Physics at West Texas A&M University, December 11, 2012

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David Weston

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