I signed up because I was afraid of flying. I would always drive everywhere, preferring a 10 hour drive to a 2 hour flight, I'd been to the Lufthansa course to alleviate fear of flying but no luck - in fact the people running it said to me that possibly learning to fly might help me.
A couple of years ago I had some cash left over and thought: I'll have a go with a "schnupperflug" (introductory flight). I hated it to begin with, the plane was bouncing around but at the end, I decided learning to fly is something I wanted to do. So I signed up, I didn't go solo until 22 hours mainly because of my fear of flying, my stomach was knotted, my knuckles were white on the control column / throttle but once I'd gotten my fear under control, everything went like a dream and I ended up receiving my licence with slightly less than 47 hours in the book.
Since then have flown all over Europe including crossing the North Sea in a 172 but the biggest benefit is that I'm no longer afraid of flying commercial airlines which makes my business easier.....