“What makes you think that?”: Rick Hendrick delivers a clear message to people with modern-day ‘mentality’

Hendrick Motorsports team owner Rick Hendrick shared a piece of advice for the young generation who wish to achieve their career peaks early in life. He mentioned that one cannot excel if they fail to do their everyday tasks.

Hendrick is one of the most influential personalities on the current NASCAR grid. Best known as the owner of Hendrick Motorsports, he also co-owns JR Motorsports and is the founder of the Hendrick Automotive Group. The 75-year-old has extensive experience throughout his career at the helm of his team and group.

He was recently in a discussion with Kelley Earnhardt Miller, as the two discussed the mentality young people follow. She mentioned that the current generation is too focused on peaking at a very young age.

"Our world today is kind of a 'right now' world. You needed it yesterday, new kids coming into a business, they expect to be right up at the top right away and there's just a whole different mentality in terms of you know how you climb the ladder," Kelley said.

Hendrick delivered his opinion with the example of his godson, who wanted to be the CEO right after graduating with his master's degree from college. Hendrick feels that if a person wants to pursue what they enjoy doing, they just need to pick a line of work first.

"I have so many fathers [and] mothers call me and I talked to their child I just graduated from college, and one of them was my godson. He comes in [and] he says 'I just graduated and I got my masters and I just feel like I need to be a CEO.'"

"I said well what makes you think you should be a CEO? My message to young people is pick something you like and do it. "If you're miserable in what you do every day you won't be very successful. I get to make a living doing the two things I enjoy the most outside of my family is racing... Just follow that path of what makes you happy because life is short," Rick Hendrick concluded.

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Rick Hendrick reminisces about how his mother helped him during the early days of his career

Over the course of his life, Rick Hendrick has managed to make himself worth $1 billion (as per Celebrity Net Worth). He is now an influential figure of business in motorsports; however, his success story is a testament to his perseverance, as he didn't always enjoy his current level of privilege.

He mentioned that when he was getting started with the automobile business, his mother, who worked at a bank, helped by sanctioning short-term loans to him.

"My mom worked in a bank and she helped me get 90-day loans when I was buying cars when I was in school and selling them, pedaling them. I can't tell you how many times she did that," Rick Hendrick said (at 50:39).

He further talked about the advise his parents used to give him in his early days, which as he now states, he took for granted at the time.

"I remember the time they said, 'You got to take care of your neighbor and you take care of your people on the farm. People that worked on the farm, I saw them when they couldn't afford to step up and do things. I'd have to say the two of them at a very early age, because when I look back now, I remember those things that I took for granted when they were telling me," Hendrick said (51:41).

Since 1984, Hendrick Motorsports has become the most successful team in the history of NASCAR. They have clinched 14 car owner championships and had legends like Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson in their ranks.