In 2016, the Chicago Cubs did the improbable, and the mostly unexpected, by winning the World Series.

Okay- it wasn’t wholly improbable or unexpected in 2016, except to diehard Cubs fans. But it wasn’t wholly improbable or unexpected because of the people the owners and the team put in place during the prior handful of years.

I mean, think about it. Just five years ago, in 2012, first baseman Anthony Rizzo was the anchor of a 61 win and 101 loss Cubs team- a Cubs team with the worst club record since 1966. Just a year prior, the Ricketts family added Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer to the front office. But slowly Theo began to add better players around Rizzo that he thought would help make the Cubs take off: Jon Lester and David Ross. John Lackey. Dexter Fowler. Jake Arrieta. Kyle Hendricks. Ben Zobrist. And Theo and his staff worked on finding and raising some exceptional young players up through the Cubs farm system- like Addison Russell, Javy Baez, and that Kris Bryant guy.

But to make everything come together and work right, the club was still looking for a guy who could push all of the right buttons. After Lou Pinella left the Cubs in 2010, the Cubs drifted in futility under maintenance managers Mike Quade, Dale Sveum, and then Edgar Renteria between 2010 and 2014, compiling a 295-390 (a 43% win percentage) record over that four year span. The Cubs lacked solid steering.

But on a fateful day in November, 2014, everything changed.

In November, 2014, Andrew Friedman, the Tampa Bay Ray’s Executive Vice President of Operations, was offered and took a job with the Los Angeles Dodgers. And because Friedman left the Tampa Bay organization, a lightly-regarded contractual opt-out clause for Tampa Bay’s manager, Joe Maddon, kicked in, allowing Joe the opportunity to leave the organization if for some reason he so desired. Maddon, who had had a good 9 year run in Tampa Bay where he had not only won AL Manager of the Year twice and an AL pennant, had been considering taking some time off from baseball when he learned about Friedman’s move. Epstein had heard about Friedman’s move and knew about Joe’s opt-out clause, and he liked Maddon the coach, so he immediately placed a call to call, and they talk through it quickly. Epstein’s call changed Maddon’s plans completely. The Cubs had all of the parts the team needed to win, and they needed a good manager. Epstein really like what he saw in Joe. And Joe liked what he saw in Chicago.

Quickly, Joe was in the Windy City, and in his first season as manager of the Cubs in 2015, he took the team to 97 wins and into the playoffs. In the off season, the front office made some moves to strengthen the team for 2016.

And that worked out pretty well for a 103 wins and 58 losses club that won the World Series for the first time in, oh, 108 years.

Maddon is a philosophical coach, a Zen kind-of guy, somewhat like Phil Jackson, except a little more laid back, a hyper optimist, and a manager who leads by encouraging and trusting his guys. After all, if you win a World Series on the shoulders of quite a few young players, they have found the strength and fortitude to succeed because they have believed they can. And that is largely the Maddon Difference. Maddon brings out the best in his players, and makes them truly play as a team.

It’s no surprise then, that Maddon’s words were embraced once he came to Chicago. He’s always been known to provide some great sound bytes, and naturally, players and fans have come to embrace his pithy wisdom.

In 2016, his light and humorous phrase “Try not to suck” became a t-shirt phenomenon and a rallying cry for that World Series Championship team. That’s Joe. Poignant and pointed, plain and perfect, talking to his ballplayers where they are at, with what they really need to hear to perform.

So, it’s a year later, and the Cubs are World Champions. What motto do you make for this team- this team that broke the Curse of the Billy Goat, that won the biggest World Series championship that Major League Baseball has ever seen, in 7 cliffhanging games, in rain-delayed extra innings in game 7, after, at one time, being down 3 games to 1 to Cleveland in the championship series? I mean- the bulk of these guys are back again, with another monster season potentially ahead of them.

Joe’s 2017 Maddonism?

“Be uncomfortable.”

“It’s really important to be uncomfortable,” he said in the early days of training camp. “If you become a comfortable person, I think that subtracts growth from the equation. I think if you remain somewhat uncomfortable, you’ll continue to grow. You don’t become stagnant. You don’t become complacent, set in your ways. On every level, I want us to be uncomfortable. I think that’s a really positive word.”

The key, Maddon said, is overcoming fear.

“Fear plays into all that,” he said. “We’re all fearful. We don’t even know what we’re afraid of. But we are. I think anytime you feel like you’re intimidated or afraid with something, it means you absolutely have to do it. You absolutely have to, whatever that is that makes you uncomfortable.

“I’m trying to balance and focus the message. But at the end of the day, man, it’s all about making yourself go beyond your normal limits, push through the fear, whatever that is, whatever that emotion is. And then you come out the other side, you’re pretty gratified.”

– Cubs Embracing the Uncomfortable, The Daily Chronicle, March 1, 2017

It’s no surprise that Maddon’s wisdom influences his player’s lives in more than just baseball.

One of last year’s World Series heroes and a beloved Cub catcher, David Ross became the first MLB player to participate on Dancing with the Stars this year after his retirement from baseball. Does dancing come easy to him? Heck no. It scares him to death. But he took Joe’s message for this year to heart- and he’s loving it.

Pitcher Jake Arrieta is exploring possibilities in comedy down the road, largely because of his appreciation and fascination with improvisation. It is as or more nerve-wracking for him to wing it on stage as it is to try and get guys out off the mound at Wrigley- but he finds he loves the potential payoff in it.

And it makes him absolutely uncomfortable when he’s doing it.

Be uncomfortable, Joe tells his guys. If you can get comfortable being uncomfortable, you can do things you never thought you could before. Like win a World Series.

Or two.

So let me just break the Maddon messages down here, for use in daily life, even if you aren’t a ball player, swinging a bat or firing fastballs.

How do you reach the top, success, in your life? “Try not to suck.”

And once you are there, how do you achieve the excellent encore performance? “Be uncomfortable.”

It’s just that easy.

And I am sure in some super critical ways, it IS just that easy.

Especially when Joe’s got your back.