I’ve read a lot of self-help books. None of them ever “changed my life”: I get to the end, agree with a few things, and carry on exactly as before. After enough of that, I got sceptical about anything that’s heavily marketed as the thing that’ll finally make me a better version of myself.
So when RiseGuide ads kept popping up on my Facebook, I scrolled right past them. Sceptic as I am, I still work in communications, and that happens to be the main skill the app promises to help you build. So, curiosity took over the scepticism, and I downloaded RiseGuide (mostly to prove myself right about it being another self-help nonsense). It didn’t go how I planned. Here’s what I discovered.
The first day
First of all, RiseGuide seems to be the “new hot thing” right now: in just 2 years, the app hit over 1,000,000 downloads, over 400,000 monthly active users, and an average store rating of 4.6/5. Looking at their website, the main premise is learning from the well-known experts on things like public speaking, confidence, negotiations, and other very applicable real-life skills.
So I paid, waited for it to download, and opened it on my lunch break, still half-hoping to abandon it in 5 minutes. The app started me with a quiz about my goals, fears and role models, to which I answered honestly, and it led me to a Communication Mastery journey. So, the journey began.
Inside, it looks like most modern learning apps: short lessons, a library of things to work through, and, of course, a streak counting the days (the Duolingo owl really has a lot to answer for).
Munching on my sandwich, I did the first lesson. Then the second. And then I found myself wanting to go back and do more the next day.
Features that won my sceptical heart
1. The speech analyser
For this feature, Speech Analyser, you record yourself talking through a scenario it gives you, and it grades things like your pace, your pauses, and how confident you sound.
I’ve done enough of these online to know the routine. Everyone gets a respectable score, a few vague notes, and a warm feeling of self-knowledge that means nothing. So for my first go, I said nothing at all. I opened it with a song playing on my speakers and let it record. As far as I was concerned, RiseGuide was about to write a glowing review of Michael Jackson.
But, it didn’t fall for it. It told me it couldn’t hear any speech and asked me to start over. Fair enough. So I did it properly, talked through the scenario, and what came back was specific enough to sting. I talk too fast, and my pauses land in strange places. It picked up on the things I’d said. You can listen to your own recording afterwards, which is grim and useful in equal measure. After that, I shut up and paid attention.
2. Listen mode
The best thing for me was that you can listen to a lesson instead of reading it. After all, we’re all by now used to listening to podcasts and audio books on the go.
Time is usually my biggest blocker. Office all day, then the commute, the shopping, dinner, and I’d like an hour of the evening to just rest. Listening is the only way I’ve ever fit learning in. So having a lesson play in my ear was a grand advantage for me.
What made it even better, is that it keeps playing with the phone locked, and when a lesson has a video or a short exercise in it, it doesn’t skip over it but tells you there’s something to watch or do, so you can come back to it when your hands are free. Pretty thoughtful of RiseGuide.
3. The small talk game
This tool puts you in a scene, like being sat next to a stranger at a dinner, and you pick what you’d say. An avatar of sorts on the screen reacts to your choice, warm if you judged it well, a little stiff if you didn’t, so you find out on the spot whether you’d have kept the conversation going or let it die. Pretty fun and addictive, I have to confess. You can also go back and make a different choice, and find out how that worked.
4. A library of insights
RiseGuide has what they call “SEEK”, a search engine for expert knowledge. I found it after a few lessons, and, honestly, had fun asking random questions about communication and getting video clips from different podcasts and TED-talks offering professional advice. I like that you always know where your answer comes from, unlike with a generic AI chatbot where you’d have to guess if the information is reliable or not.
Where I stayed a bit sceptical
As with any app or solution, it’s not all rainbows and unicorns. A couple of things didn’t work for me specifically:
- Since I already talk for a living, a fair amount of communication lessons weren’t new to me and covered frameworks I already knew. They are still a very solid basis for somebody just starting out and wanting to gain more confidence, I just personally kept wishing for a more advanced track to move up to.
- Some of the people in the videos are AI-generated, and for my taste I’d like to see real teachers there instead. I’ve read somewhere that RiseGuide is introducing that soon, so maybe I’ll check it out again in a couple months.
- In the end, you are paying for a subscription, and some people don’t love that. Since I already pay for Spotify, Amazon, Netflix, and a bunch of other things, I don’t mind it as much, but do make sure you’re taking full advantage of it instead of letting the app sit in your phone unopened.
A month in
A month in: has it changed my entire life? No, and I’d be wary of any app that promises otherwise. But a few things have shifted positively: because I learnt about small talk like it was a subject in school, I am now more intentional with my casual communication. I think before I speak more than I used to, and I’ve got a clearer read on how I come across when I walk into a room. The personal conversations that used to put me on edge don’t get to me quite as much.
And I’ve kept using it, which is the biggest achievement you might say. Part of that is the features I’ve listed above, and part of it is that little flame, still going, giving me a look every time I think about skipping a day. RiseGuide has done a great job at keeping their users engaged, and maybe, that’s exactly what we need these days in order to learn anything.
