Impact Mindfulness is a full contact sport.

You might get hurt.

Change generally does not come about without risk. Impact is rarely made without taking a chance…stepping out into the unknown. Getting the finger-nails a bit grimy perhaps.

I am currently in Medellin, Colombia. Granted Medellin is not the lawless place it was in the days of Pablo Escobar, but then again, it certainly ain’t “cushy”…at least not in the places that I generally frequent.

I’ve been in the vacation organization business for ten years…designing and managing third world experiences for first world customers. And I know what they generally want…a risk-free vacation.

But I’m here this morning to tell you that an eye and mind opening vacation experience is not a risk free one.

And that can be a very good thing.

You’ve got to worry less about catching this or that, getting robbed, accosted, confused, kidnapped or even killed…than you do about really knowing what life is like for someone else.

And there is no better impetus for impact than that realization.

I know what you’re thinking…are you friggin serious…killed? Well, we’ve all got to shed that mortal coil at some point. Might as well be while living, learning and striving for impact than overexposure to the sun while laying out at a posh resort on the Mexican Riviera!

But we Americanos don’t like “risk” unless it is the kind that leads to copious financial returns.

You see, there is a lot of life being lived out there on this planet and the majority of it bears little resemblance to the one you’re living.

Learning about real life outside of the confines of your personal soap opera is risky and uncomfortable, but also intensely rewarding.

As I sit here this morning on another Christmas answering customer complaints about the length of transfers from one location to another in a place where the roads and driving conditions are a far cry from the U.S. experience, as well as how this or that hotel is only a “step above camping”…an exaggeration borne of a first-world mindset to say the least…

I will offer this advice from an impact mindfulness perspective…

Take a risk on NOT playing it safe the next time you plan that vacation.