Books became my teachers, my friends and my travel companions.

‘I was born into the hustle and bustle of the big city of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and then from the ages of 12 and beyond, I was raised in quiet and clean Northern suburbs of Perth, Western Australia.

During those early years in my life, I had missed countless of opportunities to understand the power of reading. I mean, why sit still and read when I was having way more fun playing computer games?

As a kid, most of my priorities were evidently on the here and now, never really considering the consequences of my actions in any particular moment on the days to come.

Then one day, I discovered the classic ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ by Stephen Covey - which is a pretty hefty book to receive as a kid who prided himself on having an excellent twitch response on the mouse and keyboard.

It absolutely changed my world. It put the responsibility of leading my life back into my own hands. It was up to me to make the change I wanted to see in the world, nobody else was going to do it for me.

Once I was ready to see, books became my teachers, my friends and my travel companions and much more.

Over the years since that pivotal moment, I have gone down the rabbit hole of reading even greater books, the ones that captivated me for days on end, and others that were downright terrible and boring.

Like us, books come in all shapes and sizes. And there is no one size fits all, which to my belief is a great thing.’

Julian Goh

Founder of The Offline Space