When Does a Brand Deserve Your Loyalty?

I don't care about 10% off or free shipping. Make me feel something!

Before I started this newsletter, I was running a creative agency. I was on a long break from writing professionally, and my Instagram was private. A girlfriend of mine and I were talking about one of her kids’ dyscalculia. Dyscalculia —a learning disorder— is basically the inverse of dyslexia. Instead of having trouble with letters and words, you struggle with numbers and directions.

She’s a great Mom. She’d found an awesome school that catered to that particular kind of learning. She enlisted me to help her write an admissions letter. I found it a very moving process because I have dyscalculia, too. Of course, now we know that learning disorders don’t make a person less capable or smart. But when I was in school, it meant being told I was stupid and lazy because I just couldn’t learn math.

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I shed a few tears of happiness that day because of the overwhelming relief I felt that the world had, in some ways, caught up — and that there were Moms out there like her who went the extra mile to recognize and nurture that difference. (Her kid got into the school, by the way, and is thriving.)

That week, the whole thing still fresh on my mind, I jumped on my Instagram story to talk about dyscalculia. Despite showing symptoms at an early age (inverting numbers, trouble with measuring and fractions, major struggles memorizing multiplication tables, and struggling to understand something like 1+7=8 is the same as 8=7+1), I wasn’t diagnosed with dyslexia until I was 18 — which, of course, even then was a misdiagnosis.

For a while, my parents thought I might have ADD, and we went to the doctor and tried medication (Strattera), thinking it might help. It didn’t. The meds made me so stoned I couldn’t hold my eyes open in class.

It wasn’t until I was 27 that I found out I actually had dyscalculia. Learning that there is a name for how my brain works and that other people have the same struggles was major for me. I talked about how assigning language to something is powerful and how words like “neurodivergent” helped me make sense of myself.

And by the way, my late diagnosis was not a shortcoming of my Mom. She was as strung out as I was, trying to figure out what was going on with her kid. We just didn’t have educators or a system around us at that time where these kinds of things were treated with any nuance or understanding.

On my Instagram story, I talked about the dread and anxiety I felt when I had to conjugate a verb in Spanish I. Or how the numbers looked like hieroglyphics to me on algebra homework. How my natural senses of left and right were inverted, and how I even write down my birth year wrong sometimes because, to this day, I invert the numbers “6” and “9”. How some days, I didn’t even want to go to school. Despite excelling socially and in AP language, history, and arts classes, my math anxiety was profound.

It took such a toll on my self-confidence in high school that I was convinced I was actually, secretly, “stupid” and that it was only a matter of time before my friends found out. It affected my grades, my college prospects, and even my ability to function in a classroom. By college, I’d lost all confidence in the school system's structure and hated class of any kind because of how it made me feel.

I talked about how, academically, the only thing I knew I was good at, really good at, was writing. And I loved doing it. As I grew up, I constructed my life around words so I never had to feel that math panic again.

(I know this is a lot to discuss on an Instagram Story. Clearly, I needed a newsletter even then, ha!)

Me at age 27, right after getting diagnosed. I remember this day so clearly. My friend Caroline took this picture. She had no idea that my brain was reeling a million miles a second, reconciling years of dysregulation. I went home that night, wrote ten pages in my journal, and fell asleep crying tears of relief.

That evening, I received an email from the CEO of a big DTC company, telling me about his own struggles with the same learning disorder. With respect to his privacy, I don’t want to get into particulars because the email was very personal, but I will share this one part:

“I think [Dyslexia] is actually a superpower. Are you familiar with the Made by Dyslexia work? It was started by Richard Branson (who is dyslexic) and helps share why so many entrepreneurs (like you and me) benefit from how our brains work.

In my life, [dyslexia] has gone from something that is a bit of a `don't tell anyone' thing to something I am really proud of. As dyslexics, we see the world and solve problems differently. I think we find ways to become successful because, from a young age, we've gripped the fact that we aren't perfect and need to work for things.”

At the beginning of this letter, I mentioned that I was on a break from writing professionally at the time and that my Instagram account was private. This is important to note because he had nothing to gain from writing to me. There was no brand deal to be made, no promise I’d tag them in Stories if they sent me product—nothing. It was just a heartfelt, generous, and kind letter from a total stranger reassuring me that I was not, in fact, alone.

Because of that, I will be a customer of his brand forever.

I’ve written here and there about how my first “real” job was at Nordstrom. Nordstrom is a wonderful company that treated me — and everyone, for that matter — spectacularly. They placed a ton of value on customer experience and poured almost all of their resources into training. It was like getting a Harvard degree in retail.

To this day, when I walk onto a sales floor, I clock the old Nordstrom no-no’s: Is the salesperson on their phone? Are they standing behind/leaning on the cash wrap and not out on the floor? Are they anything less than gracious when handling a return? If they don’t greet me within the first 30 seconds or offer to start a fitting room for me when I’m lugging a handful of clothes around, I still mentally clock it. And that is because it was emphasized to me, over and over, by HR, my manager, and Pete Nordstrom himself, how important these actions were to make people feel seen and valued. And to them, that was priority number one. People first, sales second.

When I think of brands embodying that spirit today, I think of companies like Dorsey and Ghia. Both of their founders are profoundly in touch with their customers.

Melanie from Ghia is in The Love List’s chat. When Matchesfashion.com was shutting down, she was a Tier III shopper, which meant she saw the best discounts and markdowns first. She gave her login and password to anyone who wanted it in the chat so that they could get the best prices. I still think of that as a small thing that said something much bigger about her character—a true girl’s girl.

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Last night, my sister frantically texted me about a pair of sold-out Dorsey earrings. She knows I am friends with Meg, Dorsey’s founder, and thought there might be a chance I have them. My sister explained one of her best friends is getting married and has her heart set on wearing these specific earrings, but can’t get a hold of them. She said that her friend, desperate, reached out to Meg directly, and Meg personally went through their inventory and samples to double-check stock.

I don’t know many founders who would roll up their sleeves like that for one single customer looking for one single pair of earrings. But Meg did because she wanted to be 100% sure she didn’t have them before she told my sister’s friend no. And it worked out anyway because Meg sent me those earrings about a year ago, and now they’re on my way to my sister’s friend, a wedding gift to a stranger I am happy to pass along. By the way, Meg has no idea this happened and will probably find out by reading this today. Hi Meg!

Brand loyalty has to be inspired and earned, not traded like baseball cards for points or free shipping. I believe it is the brands that place an emphasis on people that go the furthest. Because (I’ve said this so many times) helping people is cool. It’s what I try to do with this newsletter, too: provide a service that helps shoppers parse out quality things — not just in material and construction, but in the people behind them. Understanding the “why” and “because” of things is important.

I try to never lose sight of the fact that The Love List isn’t really about me at all. It’s about you. It’s always about you. If I forget that and start centering myself, then what are we even doing here?

Are there other places to buy the things these brands sell? Of course. But because of how they—the DTC CEO, Meg, Melanie, and the culture at Nordstrom—made me feel, I will always opt to shop with them first. And that, my friends, is well-deserved loyalty.