What's common between money and success?

Lessons from personal financial planning that are generalizable to personal career planning:

1. Compounding

If you invest $5k now vs $5k in the far future, the former is much better. Similarly, studying and up-skilling yourself as early as possible yields the highest returns.
The reason both occur is compounding. $5k today earns some interest which is reinvested tomorrow to get higher returns. A good degree today gets you a better job tomorrow along with a great peer group and the opportunity to live in a posh neighborhood, each of which further improves your odds at success.

2. Risk Appetite

Indian (or Asian) investors first build a safety net with fixed deposits before moving on to riskier bets like mutual funds and stocks.
Similarly, with their careers, Indian students overwhelmingly crowd up for a stable bread-earning degree in medical or engineering. Later, some may opt for riskier startups or side careers in hobbyist freelancing such as photography or writing.
On the other hand, American / European / Western people neither rely on a safe college degree nor on a prudent investment plan, owing to the living-on-credit culture.

Life Insurance is a small regular premium which is returned manyfold to your family in the case of your unfortunate death or severe disability. It keeps your dependents from spiraling down if you permanently lose any potential for earning a livelihood.
It's good financial planning to be monetarily insured, but you need to also invest your efforts into making sure your loved ones can survive such rough passages. Building a strong familial connect, discussing difficult questions, and developing emotional intelligence is key to survival.
Some life insurance schemes return you a part of your premium even if you survive through the insured period. Networking and cementing family friends are some analogies in the non-fiscal insurance. Such connections help you not only during rough patches but also during good ones.

There will come a time where you'll stop earning (or succeeding). Retirement accounts (401Ks in the US and PPF in India) are fiscal reserves you build over your career so you can comfortably live out those non-productive years.
But can you also invest parts of your daily effort into shoring up reserves of strength and purpose, to live out your retirement years in peace and happiness? One of the answers is marriage. Sure it takes small investments everyday and might even feel like a burden imposed by the society (think of the mandatory retirement fund deductions from your salary). But it's totally worth it. And remember, most retirement funds allow premature returns in emergency situations even before you're 60, i.e., your partner can be a source of strength in tumultuous times, regardless of age.

Taking loans is useful as long as you can capitalize on the borrowed funds to multiply them for yourself. There is a risk of losing your credit score or being other penalties being levied if you don't live up to the expectations attached to the bank's terms.
Similarly, internships, apprenticeships, and on-campus placements help you taste success before you deserve it. You can use the opportunity to gain enough experience to deserve the career boost which you already got, or more! If you fail, you get a bad LoR which hurts future prospects.