Let’s Talk About Bruno and Learning: Podcast

Betty Dannewitz, host of the If You Ask Betty Podcast, is currently sharing a series of three episodes about Encanto and learning. I was part of the discussion for episode two: Let’s Talk About Bruno. Betty asked Destery Hildenbrand, Eamonn Powers, Jonathan Hill, and me to talk about Bruno as a metaphor for learning. We had a lively conversation for about an hour about Bruno, Abuela, the Encanto movie, storytelling, and how it relates to learning and development.

Listen to the podcast

If the podcast isn’t embedded below, try listening on Anchor.fm or Spotify. On other apps, look for the If You Ask Betty podcast, Season 3, Episode 13.

What we discussed

You might be wondering how Encanto and Bruno relate to learning. We used this as a metaphor in several ways (with a lot of laughing and strong opinions along the way).

In Encanto, Bruno has the gift of being able to see visions of the future. In L&D, we have often have to predict the future through learning objectives and outcomes. How is the trust in us as learning professionals both a gift and curse? How does shifting perspective change the vision?

Bruno wears multiple hats and fills multiple roles. No one knows what he does, but he’s actually keeping everything together. Does that sound like any small L&D teams to you?

The song famously says “We don’t talk about Bruno,” but everyone actually does. What do we say we don’t want to talk about, but we actually do talk about in learning and development? What don’t we talk about enough?

(As a side note, if you haven’t watched the movie, this conversation will probably be hard to follow. We assume most listeners for this episode are familiar with the movie.)

More podcasts to enjoy

Check out the previous episode in the series too: Encanto and Your Career Path. Episode three in the series isn’t out yet as of this writing, but should be posted on 2/2.

Listen to my previous appearance on Betty’s podcast, when we discussed tools for branching scenarios.

If you’re looking for more of my podcast interviews, check out my collection of podcasts on scenarios, ID careers, and other topics.