In the fifth episode of the Michelle Obama Podcast (opens in new tab), Michelle Obama opened up about how she first navigated the White House (opens in new tab) and the importance of the friendships she made during her first few months. The former First Lady had the ultimate power talk with three of her closest friends, Daneil Pemberton Hurd, Dr. Sharon Malone, and Kelly Dibble.

Dr. Malone, who previously (opens in new tab) appeared on President Obama's podcast to discuss the importance of women's reproductive health (opens in new tab), told of the first time she was invited to lunch with her." You were staying at Hay Adams and I got this call." I was like, um, I'm whatever, I'm from Mrs. Obama's staff," and someone said, "and I was like, what." And she said, "Would you like to have lunch?" and I was like, "I think that would work." [Their friendship goes back to the early days of the Obama White House. Dr. Malone is married to former Attorney General Eric Holder, who served under Barack Obama's presidency and ultimately inspired her when she was in Washington.

Obama explained to a friend that those lunches helped her "understand Washington," but when she met Dr. Malone, something sparked.

"You've been in this world a lot longer than I have, and you've been a professional yourself. And that's what I saw, I saw this is a woman who still has a career, who is still raising her children, whose husband is a big shot, but she is an even bigger shot in her own right."

The author of Becoming (open in new tab) elaborated on how inspired she was by her new friend, "The only thing that really attracted me to you was your attitude about this place. You straddled the fence that I used to straddle as a politician's wife. You were not an accessory."

Uh, deflated goal much ......" You can watch a preview of the episode below. Listen to the full episode tomorrow when it goes live on Spotify (opens in a new tab).