Personal development 101

This one's for people who love to grow. For people who want to get better. For people who value competency.I can't remember who it was—Steve Pavlina, maybe—but someone smart stated that entrepreneurship is "personal development 101", and this phrase stuck with me.Have you ever started a business, even just a small one?As any new entrepreneur discovers quickly, running a business requires basic competency at a huge set of skills. (A wide but shallow skill set.) Sucking at one key skill can hold your business up.For example, if you're great at designing logos, but terrible at negotiating, you'll find it difficult to sell your work profitably. So you'll either learn some basic negotiation skills quickly, or fail.In this way, starting and running a business forces you to grow faster than you would in a specialized job. If you work for a design company you might design logos, but someone else negotiates for you.Some people are not interested in growing their competency at a wide variety of skills. Many people are content living their lives more or less as they are right now. And they're happy. Good for them.But maybe you aren't like that. Maybe you sit in an office all day. Maybe your work is not terrible, but it also does not fulfill you or challenge you.If that's the case, try starting your own business. It might scratch an itch that needed scratching.Yours,— Peter