If you look around your community, you may conclude that the wealthiest people you know are business owners. That's not a regional phenomenon: It's the same all over the world. Regular surveys by Forbes Magazine of the wealthiest people in the world prove this premise to be true.

Owning shares in a business is the same as owning the business. It just feels different because you don't actually get involved in the day to day running of the business. It's not the business owners' salaries that make them wealthy, it's the value of the underlying business assets. If you own 10% of the shares, then you would own 10% of the wealth that is attributed to that business. If you want the kind of wealth that business owners have, then you have to conduct your affairs the way a successful business owner would. Let's look at what they do.

Develop a Complete Understanding: Successful business owners set goals and work from a business plan. They understand their business in minute detail. Understanding is developed by considering all the aspects of their own business, and even looking at the business of their competitors. They plan their work and work their plan. As individual investors, we need to know where we are today financially, where we need to be and how we will get there.

Use Other People's Expertise: Successful business owners surround themselves with other competent people. Often they will form a Board of Directors with specialized skills that complement those of the owners and managers. Your board of directors could be assisted by a trusted advisor.

Use Other People's Money: Successful business owners often manage a line of credit or they may issue securities in the form of bonds or shares to raise money. It would be unusual and not very tax efficient for a business to take its profit and loan it out to others as would be the case in purchasing a bond or GIC. It makes sense for most people to use other people's money to buy a house and it can work even better to buy investments..

Retained Earnings: Very few of us will get rich quick, so we must be disciplined and consistent in our wealth creation approach. Pay yourself first! Remember the story of the Wealthiest Man in Babylon who put aside 10% of everything he earned right off the top. It is an attitude as much as it is a discipline. Would you keep your same job if you were going to earn 10% less pay in the next year? Could you continue to cover your other expenses? Business owners routinely deploy their pretax earnings to compound their business assets and reduce taxes.

In for the Long Haul: Successful business owners often start from a basement or a garage and pledge personal assets as security for business loans. Once they have built a successful business enterprise they will often try to keep it in the family, sometimes for several generations. By ignoring the daily market noise they are able to defer capital gains taxes, allowing the compounding base of the business to be left intact.

These common characteristics of successful business owners also run symmetrically congruent with the 3T's.