The No. 1 Thing You Should Do Before Letting Anyone Into Your Home For A Party

As far as jobs go, Deesha Dyer had one of the coolest.

While serving as social secretary in Barack Obama’s presidential administration from 2015 to 2017, she planned and oversaw all of the official and personal events at the White House. These included Pope Francis’ historic visit; state dinners with leaders from China, Canada, Italy, Singapore and Italy; and performances by Bruce Springsteen, Beyoncé and Aretha Franklin, among others.

Dyer recently joined us — Raj Punjabi and Noah Michelson, the hosts of HuffPost’s “Am I Doing It Wrong?” podcast — to chat about what it was like to party with the president and first lady, and to offer tips for throwing our own killer shindigs.

Listen to the full episode here:

“It was fabulous.… We had a cool president who was very much into culture and partying and entertaining,” Dyer, the author of “Undiplomatic: How My Attitude Created the Best Kind of Trouble,” told us. “So I didn’t have to convince either one of them — the president or the first lady — to do cool stuff or to try new ideas, because they were just always open and up for anything.”

The former social secretary, who began her career at the White House as an intern, revealed that one of her favorite moments involved meeting musicians she had idolized when she was young.

“I’m an ’80s kid… so I grew up with the whole Prince, Madonna, Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson era,” she said.

“And when we had Prince come through the White House, I lost my everlasting mind. I almost forgot that I had a job.… He was standing right in front of me and I was like, ‘Does anybody else [understand] the impact of this moment?’” she recalled.

“Then Stevie Wonder walks in the room to say hi to Prince and… then Bruce Springsteen walks in the room,”