We were lucky to catch up with Nick Ordonez recently and have shared our conversation below.

Nick, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

The Spread Good Squad was inspired by our work in nonprofit. We realized that we loved helping people in our own ways and didn’t want to be restricted in how we spread good. In 2023, we started our podcast – The Spread Good Podcast – to talk to people about how they spread good in their own ways. Our mission is to share the stories of the many people that spread good in their different ways. We are nearing our 50th episode and we’ve had dozens of amazing guests who have shared personal experiences and inspiring stories with us. We built our business making merch for people, most of whom wanted to fundraise for their causes. A percentage of all of the merch we sell goes to charity. For people who want to fundraise with us, we are able to create high quality merch for them and then send them the profits to do with what they please or they direct us to donate profits to charities of their choice.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Nick Ordonez. My brother, Jonathan, has been my biggest inspiration since I can remember. He was born with Down syndrome just 11 months before I was born. So my whole life, I’ve seen my parents sacrifice and take care of him and that’s inspired me to live a life of service to others. In 2020, I wrote a book called “Halo Effect, A Brother’s Memoir” – which explored my relationship with my brother and the lessons learned and inspirations it’s given me.
When I went away to college, my parents decided to open up a home care to take care of developmentally disabled adults and that family business is still running strong today.
A couple of years ago, I started a business inspired by my brother and my love of fashion and travel called JETCET. When I started that business, I wanted to make sure that a portion of all sales was going to worthy cause. That’s when I met the founder of a small nonprofit. Through the years, as I was donating to the nonprofit, I felt a calling to help the nonprofit even more. I ended up volunteering then joining the team. I also teamed up with the nonprofit’s founder to start a new business call the Spread Good Squad.
Through the Spread Good Squad we share stories, we make merch, and we try to help as many people as possible in any way we can. Spread Good is a lifestyle, a feeling, a movement that is always growing and improving. We want to make people laugh, think, talk, smile, cry, and figure out how to be the best versions of themselves so they can continue to Spread Good in their own ways.

Check out the podcast on YouTube – www.youtube.com/spreadgoodsquad
Check out the merch and reach out if you want us to make merch for you! – www.spreadgoodsquad.com

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

There have been many lessons in my journey. From being a young boy, afraid of losing his older brother to the ups and downs of starting my own business.
Every new venture requires a lot of learning, trial and error, and constant adapting.
But the best learning came from the mistakes.
The best lessons came from the hardships and challenges. A recent podcast guest said that his view of “success” is taking the path to a worthy goal. I’ve always thought of “success” as reaching goals, but every time I have hit my goals, I make new ones, and now I see that it really is the journey that matters. The obstacles and challenges that I have faced are what make me successful.
Through different successes and setbacks, I’ve had to unlearn how I used to view success.
My definition of success has changed over time. Success used to be winning and accomplishments for me. Then it became hitting larger goals. But I found that, when I hit certain goals, when I accomplished certain things, I was not satisfied and I was driven to pursue even higher goals. Now I view success as achieving worthy goals and enjoying the journeys to those achievements. Every step, every part of the journey, is part of the success.
When I started my first business and it became profitable, I could consider that success. When I made my first million dollars, I could consider that success. I could also consider just starting a business of my own, regardless if it was profitable, a success. I could also consider my first $1000 a success. Each of those is worthy but not complete. It’s the journey not the destination. If we are enjoying our journey to our worthy goals, if we are enjoying every step, no matter how large or small, I consider that success.

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

I’ve always been a person who had different hustles/businesses. When I started JETCET and the Spread Good Squad, they both started as side hustles. Now they are my main businesses. While I still have a home care and I still help run a nonprofit, I am spending more time and energy on what I am passionate about. I started JETCET as a business that served my passion while I had a different full time career. I started the Spread Good Squad as another passion project with like-minded individuals. I found that when I spent more time on the businesses I was passionate about, they would grow and flourish. When I finally decided that I wanted to go all in on what I was passionate about and those businesses became my priority, everything started to come easier. Sales, partnerships, collaborations were coming without me actively looking for them anymore. The processes became clearer. The right people came to join. The businesses became profitable.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.spreadgoodsquad.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/spreadgoodsquad
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickordonez
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/spreadgoodsquad