Perry and I have been selling on Amazon since 2014. We didn't come into this career with an education in business, but over the years, we have learned a lot of useful lessons.
More recently, I became a licensed skydiver. I received my skydiving A license on November 11, 2021 after completing a training course of 25 jumps. An A license holder can jump from a plane during daylights hours, alone or with other licensed skydivers. Since then, I've upgraded to a B license, which expands the permissions a bit. Soon I'll have my C license, and maybe someday a D license and/or other ratings. As of February, 2026 I've completed about 230 skydives, which might sound like a lot but still plants me pretty firmly in the beginner camp in the skydiving community.
I may be a newbie in the skydiving world but I have noticed a lot of parallels between selling on Amazon and jumping out of planes.
Lesson 1: Risk isn’t measured by feelings
Safety and danger can be paradoxical.
Some activities that feel safe are actually surprisingly dangerous. Cycling, and scuba diving? Both have significantly higher levels of injury and death than skydiving. The activities that feel the most dangerous tend to inspire a culture of safety and risk mitigation that results in greatly reduced overall risk.
Case in point? I recently did a ropes course with my 11yo. It was fun but terrifying. Jumping out of an open door at 14,000 feet feels far safer than getting harnessed up and clambering across a row of bosu balls 8 feet above the ground.
Driving fast can be fun, but we don't want the ticket or the risk of serious injury. But sometimes it's fun to feel like you're doing something risky or dangerous, right? Maybe you enjoy haunted houses or scary movies. Who doesn't love a good rollercoaster or other theme park rides?
But it's a mistake to measure risk by how you feel.
Danger and risk are not the same.
I mentioned a ropes course but skydiving is an even better excellent example. It's an inherently dangerous sport, which motivates participants to stay on high alert. Skydivers do a full gear inspection before every single jump, right before we don our rig. If we inspected it and have to go to the bathroom or get moved to a later plane load, we inspect it again. Then we casually inspect each other's gear again while waiting to board the plane, and on the ride up. If nobody offered, we often ask.
When we jump with others, we practice and rehearse every aspect of the jump before boarding the plane. We agree on an altitude to separate, directions in which to separate, an altitude to deploy our canopies.
Every dropzone has a landing pattern, and heaven help you if you don't follow the pattern.
There are too many safety protocols to describe here, and we take each one seriously. On the whole, we aren't adrenaline junkies. Well, some are - that's another lesson I'll talk about later - but not all or even most of us. We are risk mitigators. We take calculated risks.
The true level of risk often has very little do with how dangerous an activity feels. The real risk is in underestimating the potential for danger, and failing to prepare appropriately.
Skydiving and Amazon are Dangerous.
Like skydivers, smart Amazon sellers recognize the inherent danger in their activity and take ownership. That danger can and should motivate us to look for ways to reduce risk exposure. We watch out for ourselves, but we also help each other, realizing that we all benefit from shared knowledge and a safer playground. In the sky, no one wants to get hit by a meat missile.
In the warehouse, we don’t want a handful of sloppy sellers creating issues that will motivate Amazon to tighten the noose on all of us. We don't want inexperienced sellers tanking prices because they don't understand their own costs. We don't want our friends watching their business go down in flames. We help each other because it's the right thing to do, and it makes us better sellers along with those we help.
Many sellers wake up every morning and check if they've been suspended yet. Account deactivations often come with very little warning, and for unexpected reasons - reasons you didn't even know you should be worried about. The sellers who wake up to a suspension notice are usually the ones who didn't know that ____________ can lead to suspension. They often live in fear, but they don't know what they should be afraid of.
The way to reduce that risk is not to stop feeling scared. That bit of fear can actually keep you sharp. It motivates you to keep your eyes and ears open. The key is in learning where the risk lies, how to reduce it, and taking action on that knowledge. Don't live in fear, but do use it as a tool.
Knowledge is Power.
Skydivers HATE to see someone jump alone. Occasionally there's a good reason, but in general we find safety in community. We need others to tell us if our exits need work, or if we are drifting backward in the air (backsliding), or what we're doing wrong when we try to track. We need practice at flying with others so we can hone our skills, learn from each other, and get called out on weak areas or poor choices before they become bad habits. When you fly alone, you don't know what you don't know. That can be very dangerous, and you might not learn an important lesson until the odds catch up with you. Suddenly YOU become the example.
We love to encourage Amazon sellers to look for networking opportunities. Attend meetups and conferences, join online groups, chat with other sellers in the stores. Build community, relationships and trust. You don't know what you don't know, and the best way to expand your knowledge is to listen and interact with others. Learn from their experience, and let them learn from yours. When we do this, we don't all have to make the same mistakes. As you gain experience, your relative risk should go down - even while you continue to participate in a relatively high risk endeavor.
Bonus: when you learn from other sellers, you won't just reduce your risk. It's very likely you'll increase your bottom line and free up your own time, as your eyes are opened to new efficiencies, better tools and metrics, and a world of possibilities you never knew existed.
