14 Times Rogan And Others Praised This Book

The Book of Five Rings, a 17th century treatise on strategy written by the swordsman Miyamoto Musashi, has drawn 14 separate on the record recommendations across the podcast spine we track. That is an unusual number for a centuries old text with no modern marketing behind it. Something about a samurai's notes on combat and discipline keeps landing with people who talk for a living about performance, philosophy, and training.

Joe Rogan is the biggest driver of that count, bringing the book up on multiple separate episodes over the years, but he is not the only one. Musician Anthony Kiedis has credited it with shaping how he thinks about life, and security researcher Ed Calderon has described carrying his copy into physical training. This post pulls together what each of them actually said, with the clip and timestamp behind every quote.

Joe Rogan has been direct about how far back his relationship with this book goes. Talking through the books that shaped his own thinking, he called The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi his favorite book of philosophy and said he started reading it when he was around 16 years old. That is not a recent enthusiasm picked up for a single episode. Rogan is describing a text he has been returning to for decades, which is a different kind of endorsement than a book someone just finished.

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Beyond the biographical detail, Rogan has also pointed to a specific line from the text itself. He described Musashi writing that once you understand the way broadly, you can see it in all things, framing it as one of the core ideas in the book. That single sentence is the closest thing this text has to a thesis: the discipline Musashi built through swordsmanship, he argued, was not really about swordsmanship at all, it was a method that applied to any skill pursued seriously enough. That is likely why the book keeps getting picked up by people well outside martial arts, from musicians to security consultants.

Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis brought the book up in his own conversation with Rogan, describing it in almost identical terms to how Rogan himself talks about it. Kiedis said The Book of Five Rings sort of shaped his philosophy in many ways on life. Coming from someone whose career has nothing to do with strategy or combat, that framing matters. It suggests the book's appeal has less to do with its literal subject, sword fighting, and more to do with the discipline and mental clarity Musashi wrote about, which translates to creative and personal life just as easily.

Security researcher and former Mexican law enforcement officer Ed Calderon offered a more literal endorsement. He said he got a copy of The Book of Five Rings before going into training and took it with him through the process. That is a practical, physical detail rather than an abstract compliment. Calderon's work has involved real world violence and high stress environments, and his choice to bring Musashi's text along suggests he found something in it that was useful in the moment, not just interesting to read afterward.

Rogan has recommended the book more than once, and the language he reaches for is consistent. In one conversation he described Musashi's writings as, in his words, the greatest book of strategy, and told the person he was talking to to go read it, then corrected himself to say show it, as if a reading recommendation alone did not feel strong enough. That kind of repetition, the same host reaching for the same book across separate episodes and separate guests, is a stronger signal than any single glowing line. It suggests the book earned a permanent spot in how Rogan talks about strategy and discipline, rather than a one time mention tied to a particular guest's background.

The Book of Five Rings rarely comes up in isolation on these shows. On Andrew Huberman's podcast, Matthew Walker's Why We Sleep gets similar repeat treatment, with Huberman crediting Walker directly for the book more than once and calling it a marvelous work. Anna Lembke's Dopamine Nation shows up in the same rotation, described by Huberman as a wonderful book written by his Stanford colleague who runs the university's dual diagnosis addiction clinic.

Tim Ferriss adds Tara Brach's Radical Acceptance to the mix, a book he has said helped him a great deal and has shared with others more than once. On the supplement side, creatine turns up constantly in the same conversations. Joe Rogan has argued creatine is not just for muscle, calling it a genuinely good cognitive function supplement that is great for everybody, and Rhonda Patrick takes the monohydrate form daily by her own account, describing it as the most well studied option available.

Almost any old, well regarded book can produce a single flattering quote if you look hard enough. What is harder to manufacture is the pattern here: one host, Rogan, returning to the same 17th century text across multiple separate conversations over years, plus two guests from completely different fields, a rock musician and a security researcher, independently landing on the same book without prompting each other. That kind of convergence from unrelated people, in unrelated contexts, is a better indicator of a book's staying power than any individual review.

None of this means The Book of Five Rings is an easy read. It is a translated, centuries old military text, and some of its advice is literally about swordsmanship. But the consistent thread across everyone quoted here is that they were not reading it for the sword fighting. They were reading it for the discipline underneath it.

Is The Book of Five Rings worth reading if you have no interest in martial arts?

Based on who keeps recommending it, yes. Anthony Kiedis, a musician, said it shaped his philosophy on life, and Joe Rogan has repeatedly framed it as a book about strategy and discipline broadly, not swordsmanship specifically.

What other books do these hosts recommend alongside The Book of Five Rings?

On the shows tracked here, the same circle of hosts also recommend Matthew Walker's Why We Sleep, Anna Lembke's Dopamine Nation, and Tara Brach's Radical Acceptance, plus creatine as a supplement that comes up in nearly every conversation about daily discipline.

The Book of Five Rings has picked up 14 recommendations across the podcast spine tracked here, driven mainly by Joe Rogan returning to it across separate episodes, with Anthony Kiedis and Ed Calderon backing it up from completely different corners of their lives. A centuries old samurai's notes on strategy should not still be showing up in conversations about music, security work, and podcasting, and yet it keeps doing exactly that.