About the People and Structure Behind the Work

How the pieces fit together

Four parts. One clear system.

The Careful Optimist

The public philosophy. It teaches people how to stay hopeful without becoming careless or naïve.

The Careful Circle

The private decision membership. It helps members examine important decisions before money, time or trust moves.

Premise Decision Engine

The operating structure and practical decision system behind the tools, frameworks and member work.

The Systems Intelligence Framework

The method used to look beneath the visible story, test assumptions, examine risk and separate evidence from interpretation.

Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Lance Jerrard

Founder-led since 2002

Lance Jerrard is the founder and chief executive behind The Careful Optimist, The Careful Circle and the Premise Decision Engine.

He has spent approximately thirty-five years building businesses, testing commercial ideas and making decisions in situations where money, time, trust and reputation were genuinely at stake. He established the founder-led business structure in 2002, beginning with decision education and structured commercial reasoning in South Africa.

Over time, that work developed into the Premise Decision Engine: a repeatable discipline for identifying the real decision, separating evidence from assertion, exposing hidden dependencies and finding the first responsible move before more activity compounds the wrong things.

Some principles were learned through decisions that worked. Others came from experiences that were public, difficult and expensive. Those lessons now shape the standard of the Circle: no artificial urgency, no promise of certainty and no attempt to take responsibility for the final decision away from the person who must live with it.

Lance carries personal responsibility for the brand, the e-book, the intellectual property, the membership standard and the language used to explain the work. He remains the founder, chief executive officer and majority shareholder within the stated operating structure.

He protects the record, the commercial narrative and the standard by which the work is communicated.

The purpose is not to make decisions for people. It is to help them see the decision clearly enough to make it responsibly.

View Lance on LinkedIn

Legal entity summary

The operating structure behind the work.

The entities below have different roles. They should not be treated as though they are the same organisation.

Entity 01

Premise Decision Engine Trust

Type: Trust
Jurisdiction: South Africa
Registration: IT 1516/02
Registered: 2002

Role: The oldest entity in the operating structure and the foundation of the founder-led business history dating back to 2002.

Entity 02

Wealth Creation Global Community (Pty) Ltd

Type: Private company
Jurisdiction: South Africa
Registration: 2017/661582/07
Registered: 19 December 2017
Status: In business
Previous name: K2017661582 (South Africa)

Entity 03

Wealth Creation Global Community LLC

Type: Limited liability company
Jurisdiction: Wyoming, United States
Entity number: 2021-001013425
Registered: 16 June 2021
Address: 1712 Pioneer Ave., Ste. 115, Cheyenne, Wyoming 82001

Role in the opportunity: Intended contracting entity for the Revenue Participation Agreements.

Entity 04

Premise Decision Engine (Pty) Ltd

Type: Private company
Jurisdiction: South Africa
Registration: 2026/190462/07
Registered: 6 March 2026
Director: Lance Angus Jerrard
Status: In business

Role: The current South African operating company supporting the Premise Decision Engine structure.

Ownership and control

One founder remains accountable.

Lance Jerrard is the founder and has served as chief executive officer since 2002.

He is the majority shareholder in the listed companies.
He owns The Careful Optimist brand.
He owns the e-book Is This a Scam or Not?
He owns the underlying intellectual property behind the decision system.

This does not mean that every entity performs the same role. It means the founder, ownership and intellectual-property position are stated openly.

Real people. Named responsibility.

Different responsibilities require different experience.

You are not responding to a faceless opportunity. Each person below carries a defined responsibility within the wider work. Their roles are shown separately from the legal entity structure so experience, ownership and control are not confused.

Lt. Col. Earl Robinson Jr. (Ret.)

Strategic Architect and Systems Builder

Earl brings command-level discipline and systems architecture to the reasoning structure behind the Premise Decision Engine.

He led the multi-year strategic and engineering build behind the method, helping convert a large body of commercial experience, decision logic and practical judgement into a repeatable system that can be used when pressure is live and the visible problem is not necessarily the real one.

His background spans artificial-intelligence engineering, legal-precedent modelling, strategic finance, aerospace procurement strategy, governance and complex systems design. His contribution is the architecture beneath the experience: a disciplined structure that keeps the real decision visible, distinguishes symptoms from causes and exposes hidden dependencies.

He protects the architecture of the reasoning.

Richard Johnson

Chief Financial Officer · Since 2002

Richard has carried the finance and control responsibility within the founder-led structure since 2002.

His role is to ensure that commercial decisions can survive contact with cash flow, cost, timing, accountability and execution. He examines whether figures are complete, whether assumptions are visible and whether a proposed decision remains viable after delivery costs, delays, collections and downside are taken into account.

His focus includes runway protection, viable pricing and terms, collections, stop-work rules, cost control, clear financial ownership and figures that can be reviewed and defended under pressure.

He protects the figures, controls and financial enforceability.

Morne van Schalkwyk

Positioning and Communication Clarity · Since 2002

Morne leads positioning and communication clarity across the wider Premise work. He has been part of the founder-led structure since 2002 and works at the point where strategy, structure and communication meet.

His role is to preserve the narrative spine of a decision so the real question remains visible, the logic can be followed and the next move is not lost beneath jargon, performance or unnecessary volume.

He helps translate detailed commercial reasoning into language that owners, members and decision-makers can understand and use, while maintaining consistent terminology across pages, tools and member communications.

He protects clarity, consistency and the meaning of the message.

The standard

What people should expect from us.

Clarity before persuasion

You should understand what something is, what it costs, what it requires and what it cannot promise before you decide.

Evidence before confidence

Where a claim matters, the evidence should be open to inspection. Confidence alone is not proof.

Responsibility stays with you

The tools and guidance can help you examine a decision. They do not take ownership of the final decision away from you.

The plain meaning

We help people make more careful decisions.

We do not promise certainty. We do not make decisions on behalf of members. We do not treat a confident answer as a qualified answer.

The work is designed to help people slow down long enough to examine the evidence, understand the risk, see the structure and decide what the next sensible step should be.

Explore The Careful Circle Inspect the method

Careful judgement needs named responsibility.

Before you trust a decision environment, you should know who owns it, who is responsible for it and which legal structure stands behind it.

Named responsibility

Separate legal roles