Levitan shared a story from early in his career that became a guiding principle. A friend had created a show with two lead characters who were always butting heads. The network told him to tone down the relationship to make them more likeable. He reluctantly complied, and the network then passed on the show, saying the dynamic between the characters felt flat. When the creator protested that they had told him to tone it down, the executives replied, 'Well, you shouldn't have listened.' Levitan carried this lesson throughout his career — when he created his first show as a young writer likely to be pushed around by executives, he was respectful but stuck to his guns when he felt strongly about creative decisions.