Joshua Garcia of Downtown LA on Life, Lessons & Legacy

We recently had the chance to connect with Joshua Garcia and have shared our conversation below.

Good morning Joshua, it’s such a great way to kick off the day – I think our readers will love hearing your stories, experiences and about how you think about life and work. Let’s jump right in? What do you think is misunderstood about your business? 
What’s misunderstood about me is the pace I move in. People see the pauses and think I’m lost, but really I’m listening. I’m letting life speak before I speak back. I don’t rush my becoming. I don’t chase applause. I carry a lot, but I carry it with intention. My journey might look crooked from the outside, but every turn is deliberate. I’m not wandering, I’m tuning myself, carving out truth, stripping off anything that isn’t me. I’m building quietly, because the loudest breakthroughs usually start in silence.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
My name is Josh, but most people know me as Makeshift because everything I build starts with nothing but heart, hustle, and a vision I refuse to let die. I’m a creator in the purest sense skateboarding, music, brands, design, whatever speaks to the soul. MKSHFT and Berry aren’t just products they’re pieces of my journey, pieces of the struggle, pieces of the healing. I come from a place where you learn to build your own doors because nobody is handing you keys. Every project I touch is about resilience, community, and making something honest in a world full of shortcuts. I’m working on expanding Berry, growing the MKSHFT universe, and building spaces where people feel seen, encouraged, and inspired to chase their own blueprint. My work is messy, human, spiritual, and alive and that’s what makes it mine.

Thanks for sharing that. Would love to go back in time and hear about how your past might have impacted who you are today. Who were you before the world told you who you had to be?
Before the world started handing me names and expectations, I was a kid who created without thinking. I built things out of scraps, drew worlds that didn’t exist yet, believed in possibility like it was oxygen. I wasn’t worried about labels, timelines, or proving anything. I just followed whatever lit up my chest. Life tried to toughen me, redirect me, box me up… but that original version of me, the dreamer, the builder, the one who felt God in the quiet moments, he never died. Everything I do now is really just me finding my way back to him. That kid who trusted his own imagination more than anybody else’s instructions.

When did you stop hiding your pain and start using it as power?
I stopped hiding my pain the day I realized silence was killing me faster than the wounds ever did. For a long time, I carried everything alone the losses, the mistakes, the disappointments. Thinking strength meant pretending I was unbreakable. But one day it hit me, the things I survived weren’t meant to be buried, they were meant to be used. My pain had a blueprint in it. It taught me how to build, how to forgive myself, how to get back up without needing applause. Once I let myself speak it, feel it, and actually face it. It turned into fuel. It sharpened my focus, deepened my compassion, and gave me a voice I didn’t have before. I didn’t just survive what tried to break me, I turned it into the engine behind everything I create now.

I think our readers would appreciate hearing more about your values and what you think matters in life and career, etc. So our next question is along those lines. What important truth do very few people agree with you on?
The truth I hold that most people don’t agree with is this, slow work is still Holy work. We live in a world obsessed with speed, shortcuts, overnight success but I’ve learned the things that actually last are built in silence, built in struggle, built at a pace the world doesn’t clap for. People think momentum has to be loud. I think the real momentum is internal, the kind nobody sees until one day everything aligns and you show up unrecognizable, stronger, clearer, and rooted. I believe healing counts as progress. Rest counts as progress. Failing forward counts as progress. Most people want the finish line without the inner work. But I’ve learned your foundation is your future. So yeah, my truth is that moving slow, moving intentionally, and moving with heart will get you further than forcing something just to say you’re ‘ahead.’ And I’m okay being one of the few who sees it that way.

Okay, so let’s keep going with one more question that means a lot to us: What is the story you hope people tell about you when you’re gone?
I hope people say I was someone who didn’t quit on himself, even when life tried to bury me.
That I turned every setback into something useful, art, community, healing, or a blueprint for someone coming up behind me. I hope they say I made people feel seen. That I listened. That I created things that carried heart, not ego. I don’t care about being remembered as the most successful. I care about being remembered as someone who stayed real, who evolved, who dared to rebuild his life in front of everyone without pretending it was pretty. If my story gets told, I want it to sound like this:
He took his pain and made something beautiful with it. He loved people hard. He built what he wished he had. And he left the world a little softer, a little braver, and a little more inspired than he found it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.makeshiftskateboards.com
• Instagram: @makeshiftjosh

Image Credits
Jake Garcia
Jacob Bocanegra