First-world problems. They tend to involve people complaining that one person took an hour longer than expected to respond to them or how they missed their game time because the parents pulled them out to do some work.
There will always be people who look at these first-world problems and say something like, “Jeez, can’t you last two hours without your phone? Back in my day, we spent years entertaining ourselves without smartphones.”
And then the snowflake would be all triggered and talk about how it would be the end of his life if he didn’t have his phone.
Jokes aside, certain luxuries in the world seem kind of pointless until you experience them.
Since my job is to sell luxury real estate — multi-million dollar properties that only the richest in the city can afford — I get to experience some of these “ultra-excessive” amenities.
Having made more money than I’ve ever had in my entire life, I also ended up spending some money on some luxuries that I didn’t care for before.
After experiencing some of these luxuries, it’s become more challenging to return to my “normal” life. Life is so much better with these luxuries, and you would only know once you experience these things.
7. Sunglasses
I never bothered with sunglasses. A pair of sunglasses always seemed like that one extra thing I had to carry along and maintain.
It never bothered me to walk outside without sunglasses on. I did it all my life for 18 years. Why should I start wearing sunglasses now?
While I was in Toronto back in July this year, our company canceled my auction, so I had some free time on my hands.
After going through days of only eating two meals of McDonald’s every day, I felt a need to work on my health. I became more aware of my health and decided that I would do everything to become the best version of myself.
So after going through various blog posts and videos, I found that my eyes were something that I needed to protect. I decided to get a pair of sunglasses.
I’m someone who wants the best, though. I wasn’t just going to settle for some $2 pair of plastic sunglasses. I wanted something nice.
I’m also a weird person that often has skewed perceptions of how much things are worth and makes rash decisions when something doesn’t match that perception.
I considered a pair of Ray-Bans as a pair of nice sunglasses. For some reason, I thought each pair would cost close to $1,000.
So when I went to the mall in Toronto one day and saw that a pair of Ray-Bans was less than $300, I quickly bought one under the pretense that it was cheap.
In reality, luxury sunglasses were all close to $300 a pair. It was the super luxurious sunglasses that went above that price.
Although I regretted my purchase a little bit, my remorse quickly disappeared after using the sunglasses.
I could actually open my eyes fully when it was sunny outside!
The sunglasses’ usefulness became even more apparent when I got back to Calgary. I cannot drive during sunrise or sunset times without my Ray-Bans.
My sunglasses allow me to see the road clearly when I usually would be blinded by the sun. That’s potentially life-saving!
So after getting my sunglasses, I feel like that is that one extra thing I have to bring with me, but mainly because if I don’t, my life is so much more inconvenient.
6. Suits
On the topic of wearables, suits have become my most recent obsession, which is a big surprise considering what I used to think about clothing.
Before becoming a real estate agent and then a Project Manager with Concierge Auctions, I wore athletic wear exclusively.
The reason stemmed from my middle school days where we had to change for gym. To be efficient, I just wore my gym wear for the entire day every day.
But when I was in the process of becoming a real estate agent, my mom said that I should get a suit. When I got a $500 suit, the cost seemed outrageous as previously, all the shirts I wore were the free shirts I got from some badminton tournament or making it onto a school sports team.
I now have three $500 suits. When I make a lot more money, I may buy a higher-end suit that costs more than $1000.
Wearing a suit has helped me make way better first impressions which have led people who usually are too busy to talk to me to give me some of their time and attention.
I totally get the sentiment that people shouldn’t judge you by what you wear and instead by your accomplishments, but when you’re an 18-year-old university drop-out with no super meaningful successes yet, every little thing that can prop you up will help you a ton.
I even did a little bit of a split test. When I wear a suit, I don’t have to explain to people that I’m here to show them around the house. When I wear a polo shirt and jeans (which isn’t even that casual), people often assume I’m just another guy looking around in which I have to explain to them that I’m the person showing them the home.
Making first impressions isn’t the only thing that suits are good for. I also found that suits help with my confidence.
My job is one of the most technically most straightforward but most emotionally tricky jobs in the world. All I have to do is call as many people as possible and convince them to participate in an auction. I need like ten people to say yes, but that often means getting rejected over 100 times in the process.
Wearing a suit makes me feel like I’m a professional. It makes me feel like I meant to be doing what I’m doing. When I wear a suit, it’s easier to imagine myself as an unstoppable successful businessman than if I’m wearing something else.
What I also noticed is that I don’t need to be in the full suit. You know, the silk dress pants, dress shirt, and tie. All I really need is a suit jacket.
And this is when suits become more applicable to women too. What I see is that pretty much everyone looks good in any outfit when they put a suit jacket on as long as you’re not wearing sweatpants, leggings, or exercise shorts.
Recently, I like to wear a polo shirt and jeans with a suit jacket, and it does a similar job as if I was wearing the full suit. So if you don’t want to shell out money for a full suit, just get the suit jacket.
5. Wall-Mounted Toilets/Toilets With A Strong Flush
Probably not one of the first things you might think of in luxury homes, but the toilets are absolutely amazing.
Both the 7k sqft condo in Toronto and the 11k sqft futuristic mansion in Calgary that I worked on had wall-mounted toilets.
These toilets were fantastic.
I won’t go into all the detail, but the way they flushed was super satisfying and made me wonder if the toilets ever get clogged.
When I come back home and flush my toilets, there is a high chance that they get clogged, and it is an absolute pain in the ass to be unclogging them all the time.
4. High Ceilings And Space
On the topic of homes, I grew up in a house that wasn’t the biggest in the world, but it had a lot of space.
It was a 2.7k sqft home with vaulted ceilings on the main floor with a height of close to 20 ft.
I took out my badminton rackets yesterday with the idea of getting a few practice swings in. That’s when I started really missing the space that some of these homes had.
I can’t make an overhead swing in the home I am in now without breaking either the roof or my racket. My height is about 5’7,” and I can touch the ceiling of my house when I extend my arms and go on my tip-toes.
It sucks because my brother and I are very limited in what we can do for exercise at home now. No more at-home jump training or badminton practice.
Storage is the other thing. After being in some of these multi-million dollar homes whose closet is the size of my current bedroom, I often come back home and think, “Darn.”
At least my current lack of space only motivates me to work harder to get what I want.
3. Fast Deliveries And Responses
I’m noticing myself getting more annoyed whenever people decide to wait 48 hours to respond to me or spend a month delivering a package to me.
After buying more stuff on Amazon and using Prime delivery, buying things off any other website that doesn’t deliver items within three days has become much more challenging.
Someone will probably comment on this and criticize me for supporting “monopolistic” companies, but man, going back to waiting 14 days to over a month for a small item when you’ve experienced same-day delivery is nearly impossible.
And it’s the same with people responding to me via email, text, or whatever.
I work with people who demand fast responses and work very quickly. My co-workers often get back to me within minutes no matter what time it is and when I first started working with my real estate mentor, I was impressed by how he almost seemed omnipresent by how quickly he responded to me.
After working with these people who respond super fast, it often sucks to wait hours or even days for others to talk to me, which has helped me realize that quick responses are a part of excellent customer service.
I try to be as quick as possible in responding nowadays because excellent customer service often makes a business more successful when its competitors are selling the same thing.
2. High-End Restaurants
Since we’re talking about customer service, let’s talk about restaurants.
Although I have eaten at many high-end restaurants with fantastic food, I’m not a picky eater. I prefer the amazing food at high-end restaurants but am tolerable of McDonald’s or other cheap choices.
What I love most about high-end restaurants is not the food but the customer service.
The excellent restaurants have waiters and waitresses who check in on you enough but not too much so that you feel like a valued guest and don’t mind waiting a long time for the food.
I’ve been to restaurants whose food might be decent, but the staff never checks in on you.
One experience was this sushi and ramen place that I went to where we had to wait a long time both for the food and to order. Our server was sitting behind the counter watching something on his iPad or something. We were waving to him, and he didn’t move at all. We finally got to order after we stopped another waitress who didn’t pay much attention to us either.
The food at the restaurant wasn’t bad, but the customer service was. It often feels like only the restaurants where food is $50+ per person have properly trained waiters and waitresses.
1. Smiles
When did smiles become a luxury item? I don’t know.
But with social media often being an echo chamber for hate and depression, it just seems like happiness is super rare.
The CEO of Concierge Auctions, Laura Brady, is a very cheerful person. Despite having meetings at 8:30 in the morning, I always leave feeling better about my day because she spreads such positive vibes through the company.
It’s the same at high-end restaurants. All the servers are smiling and very caring, which made me feel happy as well.
It has made me focus on doing my best to smile whenever I’m talking to others. We can take away everything in the world, but we’ll all be okay as long as we have positive people spreading cheerful vibes.
The Ever-Growing List
As I continue growing my income and trying new things, I’m sure I’ll find even more luxury items that I don’t appreciate until I start using them. I think a private jet, Rolls-Royce, or personal fitness center will eventually end up on this list.
For now, what’s something you didn’t care about until you started using it? Comment down below!
Originally published on Medium.com. Get a Medium membership and read articles like this one ad-free.
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