The National Police Association Podcast with Guest, Jess Flores, Former LEO, Creator, Founder of Next Shift, LLC
Hi. This is sergeant Betsy Brantner Smith at the National Police Association, and this is the National Police Association podcast. You know, I love social media. That's no secret to anybody. But I started following someone that was followed by a bunch of people I follow.
Betsy Smith:Right? That's how Instagram and X and LinkedIn all works. And and so once I reached out to her, she reached back, and I love that. I started looking at what she does, and I realized very quickly that you needed to meet her as well. So Jess Flores, welcome to the show.
Jess Flores:Thank you so much for having me, Betsy.
Betsy Smith:So, Jess, first and foremost, I have to ask you. Why'd you become a cop?
Jess Flores:Man, I wish I I'm gonna give you the short version. Okay? I'm gonna try at least. It always goes back to 10 year old Jess losing my grandfather who was the only other cop in my family six months after he retired from the job. So whether it was the memories of visiting him at off duty at Walmart getting an ICEE and a pretzel or nachos from him or him bringing us donuts in his cruiser and a Sunday paper every Sunday.
Jess Flores:Those were the memories that stuck with me and then losing him six months after retirement and seeing the response. So it was like a cop funeral. He was also a Marine Corps veteran. My uncle was in the fire department. So it was all these service people there recognizing the life of him.
Jess Flores:And my 10 year old little brain thought, wow, he must have been something really cool. Like this is what it must be to be part of something bigger than yourself, even though at 10 years old, didn't know those words or like how to say that until I became a cop. And I became a cop over the years watching TV. I feel like I feel so goofy when I say it but I lived on it. I loved CSI.
Jess Flores:I wanted to be a detective and be a voice for the victims. That is what I saw lacking in all of these things that I was watching on TV was somebody really needed to step up and be that person for these victims who could or wouldn't couldn't or wouldn't speak for themselves. And so that was the driving force and 21 year old little Jess finally got to do that.
Betsy Smith:I love that you bring up TV because when I'm being honest with people, when they ask me that question, I tell them it's because I watch too much TV. And I was a kid of the 70s, so I was watching things like Adam 12 and Dragnet and all that. Then when I was running our recruitment team, then I ran into your generation and it was all about CSI and everybody wanted to be CSI and everybody wanted to help the victim and all that. Now you became a cop at age 21. So I'm also gonna ask you, what did your parents think?
Jess Flores:So my parents have always been super supportive. Now were they probably scared out of their mind? Yes. Did they ever showcase that to me? No.
Jess Flores:And at the time, I think it was either while I was in the academy or right before, my dad used to work in the city that I was going to work in, in the academy. And he would get called in on alarms or whatever all throughout the night. And one day, I remember him coming home and being like, this young little female officer who was about yay tall, shorter than me, and this big, like, da da da da, telling me the whole story. And he's like, I kinda realized, like, if she can do it, Jess can do it. And I was like, well, thank you for that.
Jess Flores:Least you saw it in person that there is somebody that looks like me out there doing this job and it made them feel more comfortable. They never showed any signs of concern while I was in it, and I did work in the inner city for several years of my career. But man, when I was finally done with that department, I left that department. You could see the exhale on their face and they would even final, like, say things like, oh, man. Thank goodness or whatever.
Jess Flores:Well, then a year later, I went back to a smaller department closer to where they lived. But when the injury took me out just ten years into my career, and I mean, it was done. It was very clear I wasn't ever gonna be able to go back. They they definitely let that sigh out and were willing to say things to me then that they thankfully did not say while I was in it because it wouldn't have I don't know that it would have mattered necessarily, but it would have been something else to think about for sure.
Betsy Smith:Talk about what that was like when you get because, you know, most cops get some sort of injury on the job. I I got hit by a car when I was a 22 year old rookie, and they told me your career was over. Fortunately, I found a physician that could rebuild my knees for a few more decades. But you could not go back. Your injury was too severe.
Betsy Smith:Talk about what that devastating news was like.
Jess Flores:So, and I don't even wanna say it was too severe, but it was to my gun hand. So I can't grip a gun like I should be able to or even grip a person.
Betsy Smith:Really important part of the job.
Jess Flores:Or a pencil for that matter. Like, I can only write very little without it going nuts. But Also
Betsy Smith:a really important part of the job. Yeah.
Jess Flores:That's what made it that much harder is because a majority of my body was fine, but a key piece that I needed to do this job safely was not fine and a surgery didn't fix it. Different types of physical therapy didn't fix it. A second opinion here's the deal. If I go in there and I nick a nerve, then you lose all feeling in your hand. So, it was either deal with not being able to grip things or don't feel your hand at all and either one is not an option for a cop to go back out there.
Jess Flores:I would have never been able to forgive myself if myself or someone else got hurt because I couldn't act. And that was terrifying. I was 31 years old. I was only ten years into the career that I had planned for a thirty year career. So I was like, well, I got twenty years left.
Jess Flores:What do I do? And I had sunk. I didn't think I had, but I had sunk my entire identity into being a cop. I didn't have that college degree. I started copying at 21.
Jess Flores:So I left college about two and a half years in and so I didn't even have that to fall back on. I didn't have a backup plan and the way we were trained back then like this was your career. This was your plan. You didn't need something else. Well, nobody ever talked about like what happens when you get injured or what if this career is not here one day or, hey, this career is going to end one day.
Jess Flores:What are you gonna do next? Like, that wasn't something that we talked about back then. So it was very hard, and I sat in a depressive pity party state for about two years just you know, I did meaningless jobs. I took jobs to pay the bills, but none of them compared to being a cop. And every time I was scrolling Indeed or looking on the computer, I would just think this isn't purpose.
Jess Flores:Like, this isn't any part of the purpose that I felt doing that. And it took several years to get past that, but it all led me to, you know, where I am today. And it was two years out of law enforcement, almost exactly that I started a fitness journey that changed the entire thing for me and really showed me that there is more to life than law enforcement.
Betsy Smith:You know, literally, everyone who ends up getting out of the job in the way that you did feels the way that you felt, but you had no idea, right, that there were other people that felt that way?
Jess Flores:No. So that was in 2016, and there was nobody talking about it. One, nobody was choosing to get out of this profession, and if they did, they sure weren't talking about it. They just weren't there anymore, and you're like, where'd so and so go? They we don't know what happened.
Jess Flores:There was nobody talking about getting injured. There was nobody talking about the dark side of getting out of law enforcement and what that might look like because we're all a family, right? Like we're all this tight knit family, but as soon as you're gone, it's like, where'd the family go? You're no longer part of them. Like they are this over here and you are over here.
Jess Flores:And that was probably one of the hardest pieces to accept, if you will.
Betsy Smith:So talk about how you made that realization.
Jess Flores:Yeah. So again, about two years out, I started this fitness journey and I was thrown into an accountability group of, like, 900 people and people that were showing up for themselves and dreaming big and really not just being defined by anything. And I was like, well, this is interesting. And in ninety days of being around that group and that environment, was a completely different person mentally and physically. I was like, holy cow, when you really put in the work, can be whatever you wanna be.
Jess Flores:This is crazy. And it was then that I was like, okay, there's more to life than law enforcement. And I'm part of something bigger than myself again. And it was proof that it is out there. You just might have to try to find it and whether that's your church group, your gym, like some kind of group that you get involved in, whatever it is, you can still be part of something bigger than yourself.
Jess Flores:It's just gonna look a little bit different. And that was two years out, and here we are nine years out, just turned, like, nine years out, and I am now creating that community for both current and former cops who are looking at life like, nope. That's it. That's all I got. I can't do anything outside of this, whether they're wanting to get out because they just don't see another fifteen years or twenty years in them.
Jess Flores:They're struggling with, man, I got out and now I don't know what to do. I thought I knew and now I don't. Or it's just people that are like, hey, this is gonna end one day and I just wanna see like, how do I get prepared for this and how do I set up this plan for when it does happen?
Betsy Smith:We talk a lot about health and fitness now. I really more than we ever, you know, make America healthy again and all that. Talk about your own fitness journey because everybody wants to be in better shape. What was that positive trigger for you, and then what did you do, especially for those first ninety days, to immerse yourself in fitness?
Jess Flores:Yeah. So like I said, my grandpa died six months out of retirement. He was only 61 years old. So that was always in the back of my brain. And when I left law enforcement, I was 31.
Jess Flores:My dad was, like, 56 and he had started developing the same issues that my grandpa had had, the diabetes, the heart issues, the things and I was like, I'm only half of that. Like, I I need to start taking care of myself. I can't just keep sitting on the couch like crying myself to sleep because I don't get to do the job I once wanted to do for life. So, I have to take control of this and every time somebody asks like, there is nothing like specific I can think of. It's just I get sick of my own BS and I'm like, okay, just go and do something And I had been sitting on the couch watching Instagram strangers do this certain program through Beachbody.
Jess Flores:I'll just throw it out there through Beachbody and changing so many lives. And I was like, that looks like a program I could actually do. Like, that looks like one I would actually enjoy. I had tried Beatrice twice and it didn't work. It didn't stick, life got in the way, I couldn't finish a program, blah, blah, blah.
Jess Flores:I wasn't in the right headspace, but this third time was a charm. This program was incredible. They had turned it digital where you just log onto their website or their app and you've got access to all the programs. I joined this group. Again, submersed into this 900 plus person community and there is about 25 or so that showed up regularly every day and these were women who had every excuse in the world to not show up.
Jess Flores:They had just had a baby. They had like three kids at home. They had five kids at home. They had a boot on their ankle because they broke a foot or something like that and they were still showing up doing what they could. They were using their kid as a weight or like whatever they needed to do to get through this program and what was super helpful about the program was having those who were already done with the program maybe doing round two.
Jess Flores:Those were a little bit ahead of me. Those who started with me. We were the tight knit group of like encouraging each other to keep going. And then as we got a little further ahead, the new people coming in and, like, I don't know if I can do this. We got to pull them forward.
Jess Flores:We got to help them come forward. And it was that aspect. One, supportive women. I didn't get that on the police department. So that was a new, like, environment to be a part of.
Jess Flores:But then just to have that, okay, they're showing me the way, and I'm getting to help these, like, show the way. And I was like, okay. Okay. This is something I can do. And, man, in ninety days, I looked in the mirror, and I just again, my body had physically changed because I put in the work every day and it was every day work, but my mind and losing the perfectionist all or nothing mindset that so many of us have, it holds us back.
Jess Flores:I went into the program for the first time ever thinking, okay, there's 80 workouts. I'm gonna assume with my birthday, my husband's birthday, like, I'm not gonna do 10 of these days, like perfectly. Like, I might skip a day and have to make it up or whatever. So I went into it with the mindset I'm not gonna be perfect, and that changed the game. I didn't look ahead to see what terrible workout was coming next, so I couldn't psych myself out.
Jess Flores:I just leaned into it when I was there. I learned that so whatever they're doing on the screen and that complex move, might not be able to do because of my wrist, but I can do something like it, something that's working the same body parts. I couldn't even use weights for gosh sake because of my wrist, and they were all using x number of weights. So it was those little lessons and then listening to the trainer every day as much as she annoyed me with her positivity. It was really sinking in and really helping me learn lessons that I needed to unlearn from the job.
Betsy Smith:How did you take all that that whole revelation, that personal revelation, and translate it to what you're doing now? You know, where you're online and you're inspiring others, how did that happen?
Jess Flores:It took several years. So part of the program was to post your sweaty selfie when you were done with your workout as accountability. And that was necessarily, like, in our accountability group, but as added accountability because I was so tired of giving up on myself, I was like, I'm gonna start an Instagram page and so, if you go to Instagram and you go to my personal page, the Jess Flores, you can scroll back to February of eighteen and you will see every day of me posting like what I was doing and it's obnoxious. But back then, you know, I was hiding behind Snapchat filters. I was using graphics or quotes from other people and as the years went on and as I started shutting layers of who I was as a cop and becoming Jess Flores, well, read at the time but learning who I was, you start to see the transition and there's been several pivots on there.
Jess Flores:You can see each and every one of them where I started finding my own voice and I started being able to share more of my story. And then that was reaching, you know, the people who I was supposed to reach in this world. And that was another realization of like, I'm not for everybody. Everybody's not for me. I'm only here to inspire those who need to be inspired by me.
Jess Flores:I love being the role model expert, if you will, and taking people along the ride with me. Like, I don't need to be the one that's like, oh, look at this. Look what I did. This is what I'm doing. You can come with me through this.
Jess Flores:And now it's gotten to a point where it's like, okay, well, did all that. Go back and find that. This is where I'm at today, and this is how I can help you because I did all of that. So being the resource today for cops, man, that was six years out of law enforcement that that even became an idea. But I had those four years almost of preparing for that, of inspiring different people and just feeling like something was missing.
Jess Flores:I couldn't tie the message in my heart to the products I was a part of. So whether it was Beachbody or the skincare and makeup I was selling, I wasn't reaching who I wanted to reach. I knew there was more. And one day, I was at lunch with a client from an old job I had and she talked about a CEO transition coach and I it was like a light bulb. I was like, oh my god.
Jess Flores:I can help ex cops. Like, I can help cops transition out of this field because I had nobody, and I can now be that person I needed. And then it's just really taken off from there, to be quite honest.
Betsy Smith:So when when I retired, and I wrote a couple of articles, you know, online articles for that, there was no yeah. This was fifteen years ago. There really was no preparation other than money. You know? You had to make sure that you were gonna get your pension and your investments and Right.
Betsy Smith:And this and that. And and I remember, I I retired on a Friday and went on the road on a Monday because I was a full time police trainer. But there there came a point after a while where I literally walked into the bedroom one morning and I stood there staring at my husband. I said, I don't have anything to do today, and I didn't know what to do with that. Is is that what you hear from retired cops?
Jess Flores:Yes. And it's a an abrupt slowdown. So whether they're retired, they're choosing to leave, or they got forced out for whatever reason, the abrupt slowdown, which is why the things I do now is always prepare today for what could happen tomorrow because you don't know. We don't know when the end of our career is gonna be. But if you can have a way to have, like, a deceleration or an off ramp period, that's ideal.
Jess Flores:You've got to either get yourself into a unit that is not patrol, that is far slower, far less stressful before you're going into whatever this next thing is, but thinking ahead to what environment do I even think I want to work in or better yet because that's so broad, what environments do I absolutely not wanna work in later? That helps you know immediately like, okay, I don't have to prepare for that, but this is gonna be a change of pace and it's something I have to get used to. And I mean, one of the hardest things for me was we can handle stress, obviously, as cops. Going into an office setting and people are mad about the fridge did this, or you did this with the food in the fridge or like, oh my gosh, this caseload is so huge. I'm like, nobody is dying.
Jess Flores:Like, we are good. We are gonna be fine. And sometimes my face didn't necessarily hide like my, are you kidding me right now? With what people were stressed about, but in their world, that was very stressful for them. And we have to understand, yes, we have a different ability to handle stress, but not everybody does.
Jess Flores:And maybe we can help them work through those things, give them tips on like how to better manage stress and not kill themselves about an office job or, like, you know, drive yourself to a heart attack before you're you know, that's just crazy.
Betsy Smith:What did you see? You were doing this during and after 2020, you know, after, you know, during and after the pandemic and the death of George Floyd and all that, what kind of changes did you see in the retirement or the leaving aspect of our profession?
Jess Flores:So the idea for next shift actually came, like, March of twenty two, and it wasn't till January of twenty three I really started talking about it. But I am blown away by the number of cops mid career that are choosing to leave this field. It's not necessarily the retirees, but I will tell you the retirees are definitely like, man, since 2020, I'm just over it. I am just done. Like, things have shifted so much.
Jess Flores:It's been so politicized that that they just have no more tolerance for it. And, I mean, after you've served twenty, twenty five, thirty, and sometimes even thirty five years, I get it. But you've also been through a ton of these different circumstances, and I can't speak to what those other changes were like because I didn't live through them. I was even on the outside when twenty twenty happened, and it was horrific to watch, like, my brothers and sisters out there and what they were dealing with and, like, what is happening right now? And to see what's happened since then, like, I often look up to the sky now.
Jess Flores:I'm like, thanks, god. Like, clearly, you were looking out for me, and I I can now finally appreciate that I was taken out early. But at the time, it didn't feel like that. But, yeah, the number of people choosing to leave and it's never the job. It is never the job itself.
Jess Flores:It is the department BS that comes with this job. The feeling of lack of support from their own department, from the federal level, from all levels is what is the main culprit. But also we're seeing mental health finally be talked about for the first, like, seriously talked about for the first time that I've ever seen and people are taking it seriously. People are taking their mental health and like what the quality of their life after this job is gonna look like and they're also taking their family more seriously which is very encouraging because that's a shift in priority that most of us are not prepared for. I don't have we don't have children, so that was never part of our policing world or anything we had to adapt to, but it's a shift in priorities, and anybody that doesn't think so is completely wrong, and it's okay.
Jess Flores:We were never told it's okay to have a shift in priority. It wasn't until a couple months ago on a call that I host every month, somebody said, we go through every major life change on this job, whether it's getting married, having kids, getting divorced, getting remarried, graduating college. We go through all these major life events, and we're like it's on the PD, but the PD still takes focus. It's never the celebration of what we did. It's always, you know, work, work, work, work, work, and we don't take the time to celebrate or even acknowledge those other things that we have going on.
Betsy Smith:So talk about how you started the podcast and and, what what people can look forward to, with that.
Jess Flores:Yeah. So the Next Shift podcast started in June of twenty three. I had been sharing my story on social media. That's where you found me, forever. And then in I think it was March of twenty three, I thought, man, I've talked to so many people and met so many people.
Jess Flores:You might not relate to my story but you'll relate to their stories and their stories deserve a voice and they deserve to be heard by so many people. So, I started doing Zooms and just posting a link on social media. Here, watch this episode with Betsy or whoever I had talked to And then eventually, people are like, can I be on your podcast? Can I be on your podcast? I'm like, I don't have a podcast, but okay.
Jess Flores:Sure. I'll create a freaking podcast. So I lean on some friends who had gone through a podcasting course. I got the basics. Like, where do you find music?
Jess Flores:I created a logo, the name, like, what we were going to do. And the main focus of it is to talk about the transition out of law enforcement. Not only like how'd you get into law enforcement and why'd you leave, but then everything after that. What were your initial thoughts and feelings? What are you doing now?
Jess Flores:Like how has life changed? How have you changed? Really focusing on that part of it so that people who are teeter tottering on the idea of leaving have a sense of hope that they can do it, that there is life after law enforcement. Whether you're in law enforcement or you are another first responder, you're going to gain something from every one of these episodes where you're hearing somebody's story and how they've adapted to life after service or law enforcement because it's not easy. It's not you cannot go from serving a community every day to like working at Walmart and think that you're going be fulfilled like you can't maybe for a minute to kind of de escalate your life a little bit but once you once you realize what am I doing like I have not this is boring you have nothing and you have to have something that gives you a sense of meaning and a sense of purpose and when you don't man the bad things happen.
Betsy Smith:Do you wake up in the morning with this pressure to create content?
Jess Flores:No. I actually don't. I I love showing up on social media, and it wasn't always the case. When I was with some of those companies, it was very hard because again, couldn't tie that message or that mission. And now I have a very big mission and it is to again, be that person that I didn't have.
Jess Flores:And I don't even overstress. I don't have a content calendar. I don't have any of that. Whenever I wake up in the morning and I'm like, I either need to hear this or this will base my conversation I just had or like multiple conversations or what did I need when I was there? I can just come up with something and I I don't feel pressure at all.
Jess Flores:I learned a long time ago that if I'm not showing up, people are suffering in silence and that is my driving factor to not ever let them suffer in silence.
Betsy Smith:What do you think is the number one thing that somebody thinking about retirement needs to focus on?
Jess Flores:Figuring out who the hell you are and that's very broad but it's very important. You need to get back to who are you, what do you even like, what do you not like, Why do you think the way you think? Why do you feel the way you feel? Who are the people who are gonna be there for you when this job is not? And hopefully it's still your family.
Jess Flores:Hopefully you haven't driven them away, but what do you want that life to look like? This is your chance. You spent a whole career serving other people. This is your chance to serve yourself and your family. So what do you want it to look like?
Jess Flores:And that's hard for us. So that is why things like Next Shift Academy being surrounded by people also going through it and those of us who have gotten out and created this life over here is very helpful. We can help you navigate the pitfalls that we all fell into. We can help you take the blinders off and really get into your blind spots. Like you might be talking to us on a call and you just sound miserable talking about whatever corporate security you wanna get into and we're like, but you got really stoked talking about x y or z.
Jess Flores:Why don't you look at that option and see like what's over there? So sometimes we just need to say it out loud, and sometimes we need somebody else to see it and be like, smack. Like, why are you not looking at it this way? Which is very helpful.
Betsy Smith:Jess Flores, you took a trauma and you turned it into something amazing. Where can people find you? How can they reach out? How can they listen to the podcast? How can they see all you're doing?
Jess Flores:Yeah. So LinkedIn is probably the best. That is gonna be Jessica Reed Flores. You gotta love how they make you name things. But that is where I show up.
Jess Flores:That is the most engaging environment over there. I'm also on Instagram at NextShift. Both will have links in my bio where you can get the podcast. You can sign up for the debrief event that I host monthly or NextShift Academy. You can find everything you need on both of those places.
Betsy Smith:I cannot thank you enough for sharing all this. You are doing so much good for this profession and beyond, and we thank you for spending time with us today. And if you'd like more information about the National Police Association, you can visit us at nationalpolice.org.
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