When I think about the heroes in my life, the first person I think of who always goes the extra mile is a young lady named Rebecca. Rebecca cuts my hair.

I'm going to preface this story by telling you I've had bad hair my whole life. I've been told by people with advanced degrees in haircare that my hair is very difficult to cut. The texture is somewhere between straw and barbed wire. It cannot be cut the same way twice, I'm told. I was on a string of bad haircuts for a solid year. After every haircut, I would come home and I would complain to the most amazing and positive person I know, and that's my wife.

After a year of bad haircuts, listening to my moaning and groaning and complaining, my wife had all she could handle. She decided to take matters into her own hands and she talked to the person who does her hair, and she got a referral for someone new, Rebecca. She called and made the appointment. She told me what time to be there, and I've never seen anything like it. There were flat screen TVs on the walls, people in the chairs, people in the waiting area, there was hair flying everywhere. This place was really busy. In the back of the salon was a young lady, long brunette hair and giant blue eyes. She turned and she flashed this gorgeous smile. She stopped what she was doing and she made her way to the front of the salon. When she got to the front of the salon, she put her hand out and she shook my hand. She says, "My name is Rebecca. You must be Kevin." I said, "I am. How did you know?" She said, "Your wife described the haircut."

She took me back to her station, and she sat me in her chair. Before she said another word to me, she began to massage my shoulders. Then she started to ask me about my life. She said, "Your wife sounds nice. Her name's Lisa, right? How long have you been married? Do you have any children? Where do you work? How long have you been there? Are you any good at it?" She's massaging my shoulders and asking me about my life. Ladies and gentlemen, she drew me in with a simple smile, but then she went to work on that “dot, dot, dot.” She made me feel like I was the only person in the room.

Do you make the people that you say are the most important to you feel like the only people in the room, or are you so busy chasing the next thing you've got to check off your list that you missed this moment and the people in it? It's been my experience that we race through life, checking things off our list, taking the next meeting, making the next call, doing the next thing that we have to get done, that we miss this moment and the people in it. We're preoccupied with what happened yesterday and what might happen tomorrow and we miss the people that we serve in this space right here.

This 22-year-old never texted, tweeted or posted anything during our time together. I know 50-year-olds who can't pull that off. Technology is a really important tool to transacting business, but technology should never become a replacement for human connection. Albert Einstein said, "When technology surpasses human interaction, we will have a generation of idiots." Nailed it. He was talking about us. Technology is beautiful for growing our businesses, for making it easier for our clients to do business with us, but technology should never replace the relationships that we have with one another. This 22-year-old didn't talk to the person to her right or to her left. She never left this moment right here with me.

When she was done here, she took me over to this sink where she washed my hair. And when she washed my hair, I forgot my name. I liked it a lot. When she got done here, she took me back over to her station and she sat me in her chair. She put a cape over me and she turned the chair away from the mirror and she started cutting. She was cutting and we were laughing. I was having the time of my life. "Cut it all off. I don't care." When she finally got done cutting, she put her scissors down and stepped back and looked at me and she was proud of the work that she had done. She came up and she spun the chair around so that I could face the mirror and see the work that she had done. And when she spun the chair around, she pulled the cape off and she said, "There you go, Mr. Delicious."

Ladies and gentlemen, the first thought I had was, "Please say it again. Please, please say it again." Nobody's ever called me Mr. Delicious. I wanted her to say it again. She drew me in with a simple smile, but then she went to work on the “dot, dot, dot.” She made me feel like I was the only person in the room.

Do you make the people that are the most important to you feel like the only people on the planet? Or are you so busy moving to the next thing that you miss them and everything in it? Nobody's ever done that for me before. Nobody's ever washed my hair, nobody has ever treated me with such respect and pulled me in and made me feel like I was their only priority for the day.

I will never ever go anywhere else for a haircut. I have followed Rebecca to four salons. The contract that we had with each other was that I would pay her money and she would cut my hair. That was our deal. This 22-year-old transcended the condition and made a connection, and when you make a connection, ballgame.

Rebecca became a permanent member of my family. We made her a part of our family because she treated me completely different than anybody had ever treated me in the past in that environment. And my experience with Rebecca was a powerful moment for me, a teaching moment for a guy who had been in business for over 32 years, who helped build a company that did over $2 billion a year, who thought he knew everything, and this 22-year-old hairdresser taught me something new that day. She taught me that it doesn't matter that you have all this fancy stuff. It doesn't matter all of the accolades that you've received. It doesn't matter how much success you've had in your life. If you cannot stand in this moment and give the people in it the best version of you, you have no right to be there with them.

Kevin Brown’s unconventional path to business and personal success has taught him that winning in business and in life requires anything but conventional thinking. With a street-wise aptitude and a never-quit attitude, he worked his way from the front lines in business to the executive boardroom. After a 30-year career in franchising, Brown decided to pursue his passion for bringing The Hero Effect message to as many people and organizations as possible. He is on a mission to help people and organizations embrace a simple philosophy that separates world-class organizations and high-performance people from everybody else.