4: AUSTIN - READING, LIFE DISCIPLINES, & MOVIES

**Josh Harmon** (0:02)
Welcome back, friends, to What's The Sip podcast, a podcast by friends for friends. Today's episode is with one of my best friends, Austin. We used to live together. We've done so, so much life together. So I'm really excited to let you guys in on a little bit of his life. He shares with us a lot about his professional and career journey, a lot about things that he's passionate about. And so, yeah, just really excited to get to chat with him about all those things. In my life currently, I'm just doing a lot of training. I am swimming a lot, biking a lot, running a fair amount. And so just trying to really get into the swing of things. Kind of when the New Year hit for 2026, I kind of had this thought of like, oh my gosh, it's the year of my triathlon. And so, yeah, really just trying to hunker down into some deep training, which has been good. I'm really trying to focus on my nutrition, which is honestly really hard, like to make sure that you like get enough protein every day. It's a little bit more difficult than I thought it would be, but it's all good. And I've gotten some new equipment for training, which has been really helpful and really good. I got the Normatec leg compression sleeves. They kind of massage, but also just compress your legs to help with recovery and blood circulation and things like that. So I've been using those a lot, which have been really great.
I think I said this in my intro for my last episode, but I'm getting ready to go on a trip to Mexico with my friends, which will be really, really awesome. I'm so excited for that. We're going to be in Cancun for a week, and so that will be such a good escape from the cold weather and just get out of my everyday context for a little bit, which will be really, really great. So excited to be poolside, have a coffee, have an acai bowl, be at an all-inclusive, where you can just have everything at your disposal. So really, really stoked for that coming up soon. So other than that, though, not a lot has been crazy. My current sips or my recent sips have been a... I think I'll say this in this episode, but a maple pecan nespresso pod, which is just a black coffee nespresso pod, which is so good. And that's been my go-to at the gym that I go to and work out at and work at. There, we just have like, we have Shule coffee, which I don't know if Shule's in more places than just Grand Rapids, but we have that coffee there. And so I honestly get it for free there, which is really great. So I've been sipping on that too. And then my other sips, I'm still sipping away at my Cranberry Fizz Poppies. I have so many of them, which is honestly great because now that it's January, they're out of season. So have been able to, yeah, I have like a ton of them in stock from me buying a lot, from Charlie getting me a lot for Christmas. So those have been my recent sips. But yeah, that's kind of going on, what's going on in my little corner of the world, but enjoy today's episode with one of my best friends, Austin. Very excited for today's episode, have one of my best friends, Mr. Austin Phillips.

**Austin** (3:24)
Hello.

**SPEAKER_3** (3:25)
Woo.

**Josh Harmon** (3:27)
Austin and I have been, okay, let me think. We'll do a friendship origin story in a little bit, but-

**Austin** (3:33)
Some friendship lore.

**Josh Harmon** (3:34)
Yes, but how many, we became friends when? 2002? Two?

**SPEAKER_4** (3:39)
Nope.

**Austin** (3:41)
Oh, you're right. That wasn't, yeah, let's do that.

**Josh Harmon** (3:43)
I want to say 18

**Austin** (3:45)
Let's map it out.

**SPEAKER_4** (3:48)
Yeah. Ish? Around that.

**Austin** (3:49)
Yeah, 2018, because that would have been the- That would have been the start of my sophomore year of college.

**SPEAKER_4** (3:54)
Okay.

**Josh Harmon** (3:55)
So that's been, oh, so we're going on our eighth year of friendship.

**Austin** (3:58)
Dude, happy anniversary.

**SPEAKER_4** (4:01)
Cool.

**Josh Harmon** (4:01)
Well, we'll get into a little bit more of our friendship lore in a little bit, but for obvious starters, kick us off. What are we, what are we sipping on?

**Austin** (4:11)
We're sipping on some good old-fashioned black coffee. But specifically, it is black and white roast. It was, oh no, day ruined.

**SPEAKER_3** (4:22)
It didn't burn my tongue though.

**Austin** (4:23)
Okay. It's a roaster out of the Raleigh area of North Carolina. It's called Black and White Roasters.