I don't want my code to be looked at though...it's proprietary. It powers the software that I sell to make a living...why would I spread it around? Though I get your general gist...
A git repository doesn't have to be public, though you do have to pay for private repositories on GitHub. GitHub is great for the "network effects" of it having a lot of developers on there, maybe wanting to help out with your (public) software, but if you just want some free, private Git hosting, https://bitbucket.org is fine.
You can always start a number of personal projects or dust off some old ones and put them up on github. That's basically what I did... take code I can't really sell and use it to sell myself. Such as it is.
