A former world-ranked professional tennis player who represented South Africa, Toni Gaddie
is a clinical and sports psychologist. Toni specialises in those qualities, skills and tools that
create “whole champions†in all aspects of life. She is the cofounder of the Champion
Academy with her sister Rikki Dworcan.
Over the past 18 years, Toni has been interviewing and studying many sporting world
champions with a view to understanding and codifying their winning mind-sets. Her master’s
degree thesis in psychology is entitled The Making of Champions: A Constructed Reality.
She has attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland twice where she
workshopped and learned from a number of leaders in their respective fields, including Daniel
Goldman (a pioneer of emotional intelligence), Jon Kabat-Zinn (a pioneer of mindfulness in
the western world), Paul Coelho (world-renowned author of The Alchemist), Marissa Mayer
(former CEO of Google and Yahoo) and Saul Perlmutter (winner of the 2011 Noble Prize for
physics).
A regular contributor to Radio 702 on the subject of performance psychology, Toni consults
with and presents to top national and international sportspeople, performing artists and
business leaders and their organisations with a view to “growing whole championsâ€.
Toni is married to Allon Raiz and they have two young sons.
ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy/Theory): Fusion vs Defusion and Avoidance vs Acceptance