Actor and comedian Mark Teich reflects on how choosing the “safe” path early in his career—by following others instead of trusting himself—ultimately slowed his growth and delayed his confidence as a creative leader.
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Joining me for Episode #28 of the “My Favorite Mistake” podcast is Mark Teich, an actor, comedian, writer, and director. Mark and I were high school classmates, botof “the My Favorite Mistake” podcasth graduating from Livonia (MI) Churchill High School in 1991. I played drums in the pit orchestra for at least four musicals that Mark acted, sang, and danced in (he later earned BFA degrees in all three disciplines). We catch up about high school days a bit in the episode, if you'll forgive us.
Mark honed his improv skills in Chicago and New York performing and writing in famed troupes such as The Second City and the Upright Citizens Brigade. He also enjoyed a highly successful comedy career culminating in four certified gold CD's, a certified gold DVD, two Comedy Central Presents specials, five worldwide tours… He performed at a sold-out Carnegie Hall with comedy partner Stephen Lynch. He has starred in four Disney cable shows… has been seen on shows like “Monk” and “New Girl,” and the movie “Leatherheads.”
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been watching, say, a football game on TV… and there’s Mark Teich in a commercial. He’s been in commercials for more than 80 companies including Bacardi, Dell, Subway, Little Caesars, IHOP, Fidelity Investments, and TempurPedic… channeled MC Hammer in a Hallmark commercial that was named “World’s Best Commercial.”
He is currently starring as “Uncle Vin” in an online series called The Finchers, Presented by Viewsonic.
Today, Mark shares his “favorite mistake” which involves following others instead of charting his own path for his career. We also talk about actors auditioning for jobs and parallels to those of us who are “auditioning” in terms of sales presentations or other competitive settings. Mark is not the author of a book called “You Can Get Every Role.”
I think you'll enjoy the conversation, as I did. This was a lot of fun and I appreciate Mark making the mistake of joining me for a really fun episode to end the year with.
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!["I think [my favorite mistake] was my choice to be initially to be a follower [emulating people that I admired], instead of a leader. And now looking back, I think that was a little bit more fear-based than smart..."](https://www.markgraban.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/My-Favorite-Mistake-Mark-Teich-1.png)
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Automated Transcript (May Contain Mistakes)
Here is the cleaned-up transcript for Episode 28 with Mark Teich. I have removed the timestamps, corrected stammers and filler words, and smoothed out the conversation flow for readability.
Mark Graban: Episode 28, Mark Teich, actor and comedian. I'm real excited today. I'm joined by another Mike… [laughter]. That's going in the blooper reel. I'm Mark Graban. This is My Favorite Mistake. In this podcast, you'll hear business leaders and other really interesting people talking about their favorite mistakes because we all make mistakes, but what matters is learning from our mistakes instead of repeating them over and over again. So this is the place for honest reflection and conversation, personal growth, and professional success. Visit our website at myfavoritemistakepodcast.com. This is Episode 28. You can find the links and more at MarkGraban.com/mistake28. And now on with the show.
Hi, welcome to My Favorite Mistake. I am the mistake-making Mark Graban—and that took some thought to not stumble through. This is actually take two. I'm joined today by another Mark, Mark Teich. I called him Mike the first time through. Mark Teich, we're going to have lots to talk about today. A little bit of background: he's worked for more than 20 years as an actor, comedian, writer, and director for stage, TV, and film. Before I give you a little bit more of his resume, we actually both graduated from the same high school: ye olde Winston Churchill High School in Livonia, Michigan. So pretty cool. It's great to be able to do a podcast with you, Mark.
Mark Teich: It's great. Thanks for having me, pal. This is a lot of fun. I mean, the last time we really had a chat was at the 10-year reunion, I think?
Mark Graban: 10 years? So maybe the five-year?
Mark Teich: Well, then I was hammered and I thought you were there.
Mark Graban: The 10-year reunion… this gets off on a gloomy note, but because of 9/11, I couldn't make it. It was right after 9/11.
Mark Teich: That's right. It has been a while. I happened to be in Michigan during that time because I was living in New York during 9/11. So yeah.
Mark Graban: We ran in different circles. Mark was in, I think it's fair to say, the highly acclaimed CAPA program—the Creative And Performing Arts academy at our high school. I ran more in the geek Math/Science/Computer Program circles. But I'm used to looking up at Mark. I look up to Mark because I was literally in the pit orchestra for high school musical productions where Mark was up on stage.
Mark Teich: And not one of them was Brigadoon, so I wasn't wearing a kilt. If you were looking up, you would have seen everything and then some.
Mark Graban: Not a mistake?
Mark Teich: More “scarred for life” than a mistake.
Mark Graban: I'm going to try to be funny with a professional comedian, but if I remember right, Mark was voted in the yearbook “Most Likely to Lose His Hair and Dance Like MC Hammer in a Hallmark Cards TV Commercial.” That was strangely specific.
Mark Teich: Very specific, and a lot to live up to. It was almost Marty McFly-esque that I had to start planting seeds as I was going through the industry.
Mark Graban: I'm glad you unlocked that life accomplishment. There are times randomly where I will see Mark on my television. Before all of that, a little bit more of his background: he honed his improv skills in Chicago and New York. He was in famed troops like The Second City and Upright Citizens Brigade, and had a highly successful comedy career culminating in four certified gold CDs, a certified gold DVD, and two Comedy Central Presents specials. People may know of the stuff you've done with Stephen Lynch. Singing together. Great stuff. He also sold out Carnegie Hall.
Mark Teich: I think “sold out” might be stretching it a little bit. I'm sure there was somebody giving out those last few tickets up at the top, but nonetheless, yeah, Carnegie Hall. It was pretty amazing.
Mark Graban: Mark has been in Disney cable shows. Like flipping channels in a hotel room—I normally skip past Disney Channel—and there's Mark playing the principal.
Mark Teich: If you stayed on those channels as you're alone in a hotel room, this podcast is over. We have to stop this podcast.
Mark Graban: He has also been seen in shows like Monk and New Girl, the movie Leatherheads, and the commercials. It happens a lot. I'm sitting there watching football, here's Mark in a Little Caesar's ad. He's done ads for Dell, Subway, IHOP, Fidelity Investments. And then there's the Hallmark commercials.
Mark Teich: We did a Hallmark commercial probably more than 12 years ago. It was voted funniest commercial that year and won some award. It was a lot of fun. So much so that—oh, you mentioned IHOP, so I'll give you a twofer. If you look up on YouTube “Hallmark Hammer,” you can see me as MC Hammer going through the motions. I could dance all those moves. I was the only guy in LA that had that “young dad” look that could dance. So much so that I didn't even go to the callback. The guys at the callback knew me and one of them was just like, “Hey, just let Teich do this. Okay?” So they ended up hiring me for that just based off of everybody else's frustration.
But my point is, regarding the IHOP commercial and the Hammer commercial: on both commercials on YouTube, you can find comments where people either think my head was superimposed onto a black man's body for the MC Hammer commercial, or they thought I was a black person in the IHOP commercial. I was completely painted like a coin in this commercial, and people thought it was racist that a black guy was going in “silver face.” And then one of my students kept typing into the YouTube channel going, “I know this guy, he's a white guy!” It was the funniest thing. So I guess I'm loved or hated by people that don't know what my body looks like. I didn't know how to end that part.
Mark Graban: Wait, people can Google that.
Mark Teich: Yeah, people can Google that. That's a good ending.
Mark Graban: Not the “what your body looks like” part, but the commercial. Mark is also currently starring as Uncle Vin in a series called The Finchers, presented by ViewSonic. We'll talk about that later on. It's kind of an interesting hybrid sitcom/commercial endeavor.
Mark Teich: That's the best way to put it. It started off as one thing and now it's kind of turned into this thing that's way bigger than me. It's crazy. Even here… [holds up newspaper] …this is the New York Times here.
Mark Graban: Gloomy 2020, looking back.
Mark Teich: This was a full-page article in the New York Times.
Mark Graban: Wow. Be careful with the open robes, that'll get canceled too.
Mark Teich: Exactly. Or it'll get me more seasons, I don't know. I'm hoping it's more of a Boogie Nights thing than a Lebowski thing.
Mark Graban: We'll talk about that a little bit more, but thanks for accepting the invitation here. I saw Mark is doing a press promo tour, and I hope this isn't a mistake. Like your crappiest promo.
Mark Teich: No, it's literally a mistake. I mean, you wanted it to be a mistake, so we're making it all happen. It is all a giant tie to the mistake that is my life.
Mark Graban: Life is but a series of mistakes. So on that note, Mark, of all the different mistakes that we all make—I've made a couple already today—what's the most meaningful? What would you consider to be your favorite mistake?
Mark Teich: Oh gosh. I think it was my choice initially to be a follower rather than a leader. I think that was it, if I can really generalize it. You might not have gotten that in high school from me because I know looking back, I was coming across more as a confident person than a leader. But I was always looking to follow in the footsteps of something. Whether it was my best friend from back in the day who was a couple of years older than me… I was kind of like, “Okay, I see his path. And I like that path. What if I just kind of continue to do what he's doing?”
It's a safety net. I think that's the case for a lot of people. Some people might think that's just emulating people you admire, or for comedians, you get your voice from imitating other people's voices. But I think if I would have stayed more on the track of really looking within and out, it would have been a different path.
That being said, I don't know if you feel this way, but I always feel for the most part I was at the right place at the right time for what I was doing. Like 1988 to 1991, Churchill High School. There had never been better years of that high school than the time that I was there. For some reason, I feel that way. We did some great stuff. I look back at particular years and think, “Oh, I was at that place during that time, I'm really lucky.” I'm all about chalking that up to being completely delusional, but why wouldn't I say that?
Mark Graban: There were a lot of really talented kids in that high school.
Mark Teich: I agree. I got to work with a lot of those talented people. And the professional theater I was doing outside of high school… I was in a children's theater group in Detroit called the Peanut Butter Players. It was Detroit's number one family entertainment. People in that cast included Danny Gurwin, who was in multiple things on Broadway. Celia Keenan-Bolger, who just won the Tony for Sorkin's To Kill a Mockingbird. Sutton and Hunter Foster—Sutton is on Younger and won multiple Tonys; Hunter has done multiple things on Broadway. Me… sure, I'll put myself in that category. There was a whole bunch of other talented people. This guy Ian, he's the dad on a Disney Channel show right now. I was just lucky enough to be around those people.
Mark Graban: Judy Greer was a couple of years behind us.
Mark Teich: Judy was a year younger than we were. Judy was Judy Evans back then. Now it's Judy Greer and she is killing it. She's so famous. She's in my friend's wife's knitting circle that they do on Zoom now.
Mark Graban: Talking about admiring and emulating people doesn't sound so bad on the surface, but you alluded to the fact that at some point you realized maybe you had your own path in you?
Mark Teich: It was a safety net for a lot of things. If you've got my best friend going down the theater path two years ahead of me… if you look back at it, that is a great “you go first, let me see what happens.” If you fall into some pit of despair, at least that won't happen to me because I'll see your mistakes. I was looking at it from that perspective. Looking back, I think that was a little bit more fear-based than smart. I think taking the risk and taking the chance would have made my choices and my decisions a little bit more fruitful.
Mark Graban: It was safer to follow someone else's examples?
Mark Teich: Of course. But how would I even possibly know that at the time? I don't chalk that up to a regret because these are all champagne problems. I continue to have an incredibly interesting, mildly successful career where I've lived more lives than I should have been allowed to.
Mark Graban: What do you think would have been the turning point of following your own path? When did you start carving out your own path?
Mark Teich: I think it wasn't until I was almost through my twenties. I was coming upon 30 and I was getting pushed—I'm happy about it now, but I was really hurt and resentful for it then—by Stephen Lynch, who is one of my dearest best friends. He was the ringleader of all that music. I definitely have a small hand in it, but it was his baby. He knew, just like some proud grandmother, that I had it in me and I could do a lot of stuff on my own. I didn't have to rely on his coattails to propel myself forward. He kind of cut the cord a little bit: “This is my thing, this is your thing. I love that we're doing our thing together, but really look into your thing as well.”
So just like any person that's been dumped, I changed my hairstyle and moved away. Though at that time I'd already lost all my hair. I moved to LA and I was lucky enough to work with my buddy Lance Barber, who plays the dad now on Young Sheldon and was Paulie G in The Comeback. His manager Joel brought me on and we worked together for about a year. I kind of got my legs out here. I've bounced around to different representations and managers, but luckily for me, I've kept my nose pretty clean. I don't have much bad blood in this town, which is nice.
Mark Graban: You stayed off of TMZ?
Mark Teich: I did. TMZ is the most dramatic show on television, the way they spin everything. That's a completely other side of the business that I have no desire to be a part of.
Mark Graban: Did you ever want to be famous?
Mark Teich: No.
Mark Graban: I wanted to accomplish things, but now everybody is famous to 15 other people. From writing books and doing podcasts, I'll go to a conference and I'm famous to somebody. They're excited to meet me, but then I'm feeling that exact same way about someone else in the room within professional circles. I've learned to be gracious when people say nice things.
Mark Teich: As long as you keep the other person involved in the whole thing versus them just shouting praise at you. If you bring them into the fold and make it a little bit more human, that's the best thing you can possibly do. When Stephen and I were at the height of touring and people would come up to us… it's kind of unbelievable. But as long as you make them human and start talking to them, everything kind of subsides. It's nice.
Mark Graban: When I've met professional heroes, the nicest thing is when they ask sincere questions about you.
Mark Teich: I think that's the smartest thing that you can do.
Mark Graban: I'll try to emulate that. It's more likely when things get back to normal, if we're out for a drink, someone's going to recognize you.
Mark Teich: With this beard, glasses, and hat, nobody can recognize me at this point. I'm a walking disguise.
Mark Graban: In the entertainment realm, you're going through these audition cycles and there's a lot of rejection. I'm curious for anyone who does sales—as a consultant, you're competing against others. Do you often feel like you didn't get a role because of some mistake you made, or is it just that you can't get every role?
Mark Teich: I'll put it this way: you can get every role. There are odds. There's always going to be a couple of unicorns here and there. Donald Glover is a unicorn. He's an amazing talent that went, “Oh, I'm going to try this,” and writes it down. Then he does standup and he's better than people that have been doing standup for 30 years. Then he does music.
But just like sales, just like writing, the entertainment business is exactly the same. When it comes to getting auditions, the best thing you can do is put your heart onto the page. You know in your heart of hearts when you go to an interview or an audition if you're not into it, if you're hungover, whatever. If you walk out of there and you're like, “Yeah, I totally put my best foot forward,” you're either telling yourself the truth or you're lying to yourself.
When I was doing Leatherheads, George Clooney was directing and he'd written the whole thing. I was one of three guys playing reporters—me, Mike O'Malley, and Christian Stoltey (from Chicago Fire). We'd have a lot of downtime. The guy that played the editor was this old, awesome dude with a magical beard. He gave us this tip of wisdom. He said, “This is how auditioning is: it's like house money.”
Do you know what house money is at Vegas? In Caesars Palace, you get “Caesar Bucks” for getting there. You can't spend them anywhere else. If you go to a blackjack table and put a hundred dollars of Caesar Bucks down, and you win another hundred, you've won that hundred dollars plus you still get your Caesar Bucks back. Until you lose all the Caesar Bucks, you haven't really lost anything.
So, when you go into the audition, somebody is giving you those monies to go into that audition. Getting into that room is harder than anybody thinks. There are thousands of submissions. When you go in there, everybody wants you to do well. People get too caught up in movie culture thinking there's some evil person that wants you to mess up. For the most part, they want you to do well so they can say, “Finally! He or she gets it.” It's the same in a business meeting.
If you're spending that “house money,” the only thing you can win from that is the job. You're not walking out of there going “I messed up.” You put all that money down. If you've done everything that you can do, and you're not lying to yourself, then you haven't made a mistake. The only one to blame is you if you only put down 60%. Luckily, that muscle starts to grow and you know how to flex it. It's all finesse after that.
Mark Graban: So our guest again is Mark Teich. He is the author of the new self-help book, “You Can Get Every Role.”
Mark Teich: Yes, exactly. Hopefully, a little graphic pops up right here.
Mark Graban: One other thing I may have pestered you on Facebook about: I was at the Lean Startup conference, a very serious Silicon Valley event. Somebody was giving a talk and in the slides, there you are in a stock photo in a suit and tie.
Mark Teich: It probably wasn't a stock photo. It was probably something that he had just pulled for this presentation. Maybe I should ask him for a residual. Did you pay to go there? Well then I clearly am owed some money.
Mark Graban: It was a grab from a commercial. You were sitting in what looked like a boardroom.
Mark Teich: Shirt and tie. Once again, champagne problems. That's one of 20 spots I've done where I am the flustered, blustery boss with a shirt too tight and a tie only going down to his nipples.
Mark Graban: In your clip reel, that is sort of a thing for you. The tie that is way too short.
Mark Teich: Why be that burly 128 lbs I was in high school when I can blow up to a festive 190? And by 190, I probably mean about 205.
Mark Graban: Speaking of making it big! We do see a lot of you in The Finchers. And again, that robe. You got to keep that robe.
Mark Teich: For wardrobe though, it's pretty sweet because if all I gotta do is throw on a robe every day for this thing, God bless. I love it.
Mark Graban: Tell us more about The Finchers and how that came to be.
Mark Teich: It's at TheFinchers.com. There's always been a corporation behind TV and film. TV was invented for the purposes of advertising. ViewSonic is a monitor company. Back when we were kids buying our Apple IIe, you didn't have to get an Apple monitor, you could get a ViewSonic. This company has been around forever. They started by selling monitors to the general public, then they went to businesses and became this billion-dollar company. Once the pandemic hit, they were like, “Oh, we can start selling to the people again.” They have these amazing monitors and projectors.
Mark Graban: In that first episode, the product integration features those projectors.
Mark Teich: Yeah, so they were doing a lot of product integration and creating a sitcom around the whole thing. At first, I think it started like, “Oh, this is kind of a cute thing.” And now they are just pushing the envelope to see how far they can go with this. For that, it's been a lot of fun. I play the wacky uncle. I live out in an area similar to Topanga Canyon, very hippy-dippy. I have a yurt and a ferret and I don't wear many clothes.
Mark Graban: It's at TheFinchers.com. It may really turn into something like Ted Lasso with Jason Sudeikis, which started off as a series of commercials for NBC.
Mark Teich: Dude, I've known Jason forever. When I was coming up in Chicago, he came in a little bit after me. He came in like a house on fire. He was amazing. If you've watched Ted Lasso, the guy that plays Coach Beard is an old friend of all of ours. They conceptualized this whole thing based on those commercials. Have you watched the season? It's so good. It's heartbreaking. I'm such a sucker for crying at acts of charity.
Mark Graban: This has been a lot of fun to hear some of your perspectives, Mark, on a very interesting career. Our guest has been Mark Teich. His website is MarkTeich.com if you want to see more of his work.
Mark Teich: I think that's it. And Instagram I'm @MarkTeich111. I appreciate you having me on. This was fun, dude.
Mark Graban: I appreciate you accepting the invitation. It was a lot of fun. So again, check out TheFinchers.com. MarkTeich.com. The pride of Churchill High School, Livonia.
Mark Teich: Right back at you, kid.
Mark Graban: Thanks for listening. I hope this podcast inspires you to pause and think about your own favorite mistake and how learning from mistakes shapes you personally and professionally. If you're a leader, what can you do to create a culture where it's safe for colleagues to talk openly about mistakes in the spirit of learning? Please subscribe, rate, and review the podcast. Our website is myfavoritemistakepodcast.com. See you next time.
This episode explores how fear-based decisions can quietly shape a career. Actor Mark Teich explains why following others felt safe—and why leading himself changed everything.