Issue #13: The People Who Say "Stay in Your Lane" Are Usually Stuck in Theirs

You're six months into learning to code. Your projects are getting better. You can feel the momentum building.

Then you mention it at a family dinner.

Your uncle, a senior developer at a legacy tech company, leans back in his chair. "You know, it's great that you're exploring this, but coding is really more for people who started young. You should focus on what you're already good at. Stay in your lane."

You smile politely. But the comment lands like a punch.

Because part of you was already wondering if you were delusional. Part of you was already questioning whether you belonged. And now someone with credentials just confirmed your worst fear.

Here's what most people do next: they slow down. They second-guess. They quietly abandon the experiment, telling themselves it was "just a phase."

But here's what most people get wrong.

That uncle isn't protecting you. He's protecting himself.

When someone tells you to "stay in your lane," they're not giving you strategic career advice. They're revealing something about their own identity. Specifically, they're revealing what threatens it.

Let me be precise about this.

People who are actively evolving, who have recently navigated their own reinventions, rarely tell others to stay put. They know from experience that lanes are constructs, not natural law. They know that the most valuable skills often come from crossing domains.

The people who default to "stay in your lane" are usually people who stayed in theirs. And they need you to stay in yours too, because your evolution challenges the story they've been telling themselves about why they never left.

This is not speculation. This is data.

When I was a pharmacist learning to code, the harshest criticism didn't come from software engineers. It came from other pharmacists. Colleagues who had thought about making a change but never did. Friends who had settled into careers they tolerated but didn't love. People who needed my stuck-ness to validate their own.

The resistance wasn't about me. It was about them.

And once I understood that, I stopped letting their fear dictate my reality.

To understand why gatekeepers resist your evolution, you need to understand their Evidence-Story-Reality Loop. This is the six-stage identity system that keeps everyone stuck or sets them free:

IDENTITY → ACTION → EVIDENCE → INTERPRETATION → STORY → REALITY

Here's how it works for the gatekeeper.

Their Identity: "I am a [their profession]. This is who I am. This is my lane."

Their (Lack of) Action: They never took the identity-incongruent action. They never ran the experiment. They stayed where it was safe.

Their Evidence: Years of staying in the same domain. A resume that shows linear progression within a narrow field. No proof of successful reinvention.

Their Interpretation: "I stayed because this is where I belong. I'm good at this. Why would I risk leaving?"

Their Story: "Lanes exist for a reason. Specialization matters. People who jump around are unfocused. I made the smart choice by staying."

Their Reality: A career that feels increasingly like a cage. Watching others evolve while they stagnate. Resentment disguised as wisdom.

Now here's the critical part.

When you show up and say "I'm learning to code" or "I'm starting a business" or "I'm exploring a completely different field," you're not just sharing your journey. You're introducing evidence that contradicts their entire story.

Your action generates data that their interpretation can't accommodate.

If you can successfully leave your lane, it means lanes aren't actually mandatory. Which means they didn't have to stay in theirs. Which means all those years of "playing it safe" might have been years of playing it scared.

Your evolution forces them to reinterpret their own evidence. And most people don't want to do that. It's too uncomfortable.

So instead of updating their story, they attack your experiment.

"Stay in your lane" is not advice. It's a defense mechanism.

Let me tell you about the director of pharmacy.

This was at the end of my one-year compulsory housemanship as a clinical pharmacist. I was good at the job. Really good. I had become the de facto IT support for the entire directorate. I had proven I could operate at a high level.

The director saw this. He wanted me to stay. He made me an offer. He mapped out a clear career path. Pharmacist. Senior pharmacist. Specialist pharmacist. One day, maybe even his role.

He was genuinely trying to help. But he was also operating from his own ESR Loop.

His identity: a successful career pharmacist who had climbed the ladder within the system.

His interpretation of my tech skills: "Those are useful hobbies that make you a better pharmacist."

His story: "This is the right path. I did it. It worked. You should do it too."

When I told him I was leaving to pursue something in technology full-time, he didn't understand. He strongly advised against it. He listed all the risks. He emphasized all the opportunities I'd be walking away from.

He wasn't wrong about the risks. He was wrong about the cost of ignoring my own data.

Because while he was seeing my pharmacy career, I was sitting on different evidence:

I had built an e-library used by hundreds of pharmacy students.

I had created an ERP system for our student association.

I had sold a pharmacy management application for the equivalent of my entire monthly salary.

I had taught myself to code consistently enough to build real products that real people used.

I had generated income from software while my pharmacy salary was delayed for eight months.

This wasn't theoretical. This was proof.

And the internal energy data was even clearer. I would rush from hospital rounds to the IT lab. I would code until 2 AM even though I had to be on the ward at 8 AM. Time disappeared when I was building. I felt alive in a way I never did when counting pills.

The director's advice made perfect sense within his ESR Loop. But it ignored the evidence I was generating within mine.

So I thanked him. I respected his perspective. And I left anyway.

Two years later, I had a full-time software engineering role. Four years later, I had completed a Master's in Health Informatics. Five years later, I'm the CTO of a startup and building a knowledge business teaching others how to navigate their own reinventions.

The director's career path would have been fine. Safe. Respectable.

But it would have been his path, not mine.

Not everyone who questions your reinvention is a gatekeeper. Some people are genuinely trying to help you avoid mistakes they've made or seen others make.

The difference is in the data they're using.

Here's how to tell them apart.

Gatekeepers:

Guides:

The gatekeeper wants you to stay because your staying validates their staying.

The guide wants you to evolve strategically because they know from experience what works and what doesn't.

One is protecting their identity. The other is protecting your process.

When you hear this phrase, whether it's from family, colleagues, or supposed mentors, here's your decision tree.

Step 1: Acknowledge the fear underneath the advice

Don't argue. Don't defend. Just recognize what's actually happening.

"Stay in your lane" usually translates to: "I stayed in mine, and your leaving threatens the story I tell myself about why that was the right choice."

You don't need to say this out loud. But understanding it internally gives you clarity.

Step 2: Check your own evidence

Ignore their interpretation of your path. Return to your data.

What evidence are you actually generating?

Internal evidence (energy):

External evidence (traction):

If you have high energy and growing traction, the gatekeeper's opinion is noise. Keep moving.

If you have low energy and no traction, the gatekeeper might be pointing to something real. But even then, their solution (stop entirely) is wrong. The right move is to change the experiment, not abandon the domain.

Step 3: Seek out guides, not gatekeepers

Find people who have actually done what you're attempting. Not people who think about it. Not people who know someone who tried. People who have their own proof.

Ask them diagnostic questions:

These people won't tell you to stay in your lane. They'll tell you how to navigate the merge.

Step 4: Use the criticism as a commitment test

If someone saying "stay in your lane" is enough to make you quit, you probably weren't that committed to begin with. And that's valuable information.

But if the criticism makes you more determined, if it clarifies rather than clouds, if it makes you think "I'll show you," then you've just identified real conviction.

Gatekeepers are useful as resistance training. They help you discover how badly you actually want this.

Step 5: Build proof, not arguments

You will never convince a gatekeeper with words. Their identity is too invested in the story that lanes are fixed.

The only thing that updates their interpretation is undeniable evidence.

So stop trying to explain yourself. Start building your portfolio.

When I was learning to code, I didn't argue with skeptics. I built an e-library. I built an ERP system. I built a pharmacy management app. I built in public and documented the journey.

Eventually, the proof became impossible to dismiss.

Some people still didn't believe. But by then, I didn't need them to. The market believed. Employers believed. My bank account believed.

Your job is not to convince gatekeepers. Your job is to generate evidence that makes their opinion irrelevant.

Here's what I've learned after navigating multiple reinventions.

Lanes are not natural. They're constructed.

Society builds them. Institutions reinforce them. Gatekeepers guard them. But they're not real in the way that, say, gravity is real.

Lanes are just collective agreements about how things are "supposed" to work. And collective agreements can be renegotiated.

Every major innovation in history came from someone who refused to stay in their lane:

Steve Jobs blended technology and design when everyone said they were separate domains.

Leonardo da Vinci moved between art, engineering, anatomy, and architecture when specialization was already the norm.

Marie Curie crossed from physics to chemistry and became the only person to win Nobel Prizes in both.

David Beckham didn't just play football. He built a global brand that transcended sports entirely.

The people who change the world are the people who see lanes as suggestions, not laws.

And the people who try to keep you in yours are usually the people who regret never leaving theirs.

Identify one gatekeeper in your life.

This is someone who has actively discouraged your reinvention or told you to "stay in your lane."

Then run this thought experiment:

What evidence are they generating in their own life right now? Have they taken any identity-incongruent actions in the past year? Have they run any experiments? Have they evolved at all?

If the answer is no, their advice is not strategic. It's projection.

Write this down: "Their fear is not my data."

Then return to your own ESR Loop. Check your energy. Check your traction. Make your next decision based on your evidence, not their interpretation of it.

If you're running a genuine experiment, collecting real data, and seeing improvement, you don't need permission from people who stopped experimenting years ago.

You need to keep moving.

The people who say "stay in your lane" are usually stuck in theirs.

You don't have to stay stuck with them.

See you next week,
Obed