She walks toward the set and tries to ignore the tightening in her stomach. She puts on her best and brightest smile and repeats one of the affirmations from her daily intentions journal: I can do this.
Her all-time favorite host, Taylor Rutherford, welcomes Maya onstage, extending a toned arm toward the couch where she'll be sitting.
Great to have you, Taylor mouths.
Great to be here, Maya mouths back. This doesn't feel real. She's done dozens of press interviews, but the Today show? That's on a whole different level.
Her eyes nervously shift to the audience, where she finds her favorite person smiling up at her from the first row: Dev. He's wearing the navy blue sweater and gray chinos Maya picked out for him in a boutique during their babymoon in Cape Cod.
Seeing Dev calms her down and makes her feel brave.
I can do this. I can do this. I can do this.
One of the cameramen gives Taylor a thumbs-up and she starts introducing their segment.
"We're continuing with our Women Who Made It Happen series, with a special focus this week on motherhood to celebrate Mother's Day."
She pauses for applause from the audience.
"Our next guest, Maya Patel, is the founder and CEO of her on-the-rise sustainable toiletry company, Medini, which is taking care of your beauty needs and the environment. Now, Medini's products are constantly selling out on their website. And as of last year, you can head over to ten Whole Foods stores in New Jersey to check them out for yourselves and buy them in person."
The giant screen behind them plays a reel of one of the shelves in Whole Foods, now occupied by some of Medini's hottest products: bamboo toothbrushes, shampoo bars, toothpaste powder, and wooden combs. This company milestone should fill Maya with pride, but all she feels is a sense of dread.
She nervously glances back at the audience, where concentrated faces are zoned in on the screen behind her. She blinks multiple times, as if waking up from a disorienting nap.
"Ladies and gentlemen, Maya Patel!" Taylor announces, and the room fills with applause and soft cheers.
It's showtime.
Maya flashes a large grin to Taylor, then back toward the crowd.
"We're so thrilled to have you with us here today!" Taylor flips her blond curls over to one shoulder. There's a slight Southern drawl to her voice, even though she's lived in New York City for decades now. Maya wonders if she plays it up for the cameras.
"I couldn't be more excited to be here." Maya briefly puts her hand over her now deflated belly, a gesture that's become second nature to her since early pregnancy.
"Now, tell me. What's Medini's origin story?"
Maya smiles. "Well, I initially got the idea after years of working in my family's motel, which is also where my brother and I grew up. Between the four of us, we cleaned the rooms, managed the front desk, did the billing, everything. While I was cleaning, I started noticing the shocking number of unused toiletries that piled up after a long day's work, and how even if they were only partially used, we still had to dispose of them. I spent hours upon hours of my free time researching what goes into making more sustainable products. Eventually, I quit my consulting job and transformed this little passion project into a full-fledged business. And the rest is history."
There are other parts of her story, honest parts, that were excised thanks to her publicist, Beth. Always give them a feel-good story, Beth first advised her years ago. It's all about the story for founders. You have to make it inspiring, compelling. And omit anything that deviates from that. It didn't take long for Maya to learn how to publicly inflate Medini's success just enough so that she wasn't technically lying, but she definitely wasn't telling the whole truth.
And this rule also applied to her upbringing. People want to be moved by her "rags to riches" story, but nobody wants to hear about how she spent her holiday breaks scrubbing toilets and cleaning up other people's vomit.
Taylor claps her hands. "Fantastic products that are good for the environment. What a win!" She then announces that everyone will be going home with a bag of Medini products, and a flurry of cheers passes through the audience.
