Bosses who pursue extremes away from work too.
It's unusual to see someone in a suit race a car down a suburban street on an electric skateboard. It's even more unusual for that person to be the head of a $1.6 billion gold mining company and a member of the BRW Young Rich list.
Bill Beament, managing director of fast-growing gold miner Northern Star Resources, is an avid electric skateboarder. He says it's purely an enjoyable and exhilarating way to get to work - and he's not alone in injecting a bit of action into his life.
A prominent set of mining company bosses are favouring "extreme" pursuits - from excruciatingly long bike rides and ultramarathons to solo mountain climbs - to clear their heads and stay active. 
Perhaps it is because mining and mineral exploration traditionally attract adventurous types, or the executives desire an escape from the stress of the sector's fierce volatility. Whatever the reason, stamina seems to translate from one to the other.
While riding an electric skateboard to work can hardly be considered extreme, it is definitely unorthodox.
"It takes me seven minutes to drive my car from doorstep to doorstep for work," Beament says.
"It takes me the same on the skateboard and at least, especially in winter, I am three times more awake by the time I get to work."
Beament's Fiik "Street Surfer" long-board (powered by a lithium battery) can get up to speeds of 35 kilometres an hour and travel as far as 25 kilometres before needing to be recharged.
"I just love taking my board into work," Beament says.
"I'll ride it a few days a week but it depends what I am doing. It's hard in a suit ... but I think people find that funny. It's great when you overtake someone on a bike, it's hilarious, but in all seriousness, you just have to have fun in life."
It's so much fun that Beament's wife, Karen, who bought him the board for his 39th birthday, wants to get him another for Christmas to set aside for holidays with their three children.
Another mining chief executive, Mark Bennett, finds a more testing way to push his limits outside the office.
Bennett, the former CEO of Sirius Resources who now heads its exploration spin-off S2 Resources, tells gripping stories of adventures caving, mountain climbing and prospecting for metals across the globe. He recently spent three weeks in   September hiking the Italian Alps alone.
"Exploration in itself is a risk because you have a one in 1000 chance of succeeding," he says. "Most of the time you live with the risk of failure, but you have to back yourself otherwise no one else will back or fund you. To me, this was an extension of living with that risk and reward."
During his journey from Cortina d'Ampezzo to Bolzano, climbing as high as 3500 metres and sleeping in huts along the way, Bennett came to a crossroads. As he stood staring down each path, paralysed by what could be a significant decision, a silhouette emerged from the fog. It was a woman, also traversing the dangerous slopes alone, who suggested they attempt the path that led to the mountain's summit together.
Bolstered by the confidence of this apparently experienced mountaineer, Bennett agreed to tackle the summit. As it turned out, she wasn't very experienced and said later she wouldn't have attempted the summit without Bennett.
"I did it solo to test myself physically and mentally," Bennett says. "And it was the mental side that was the hardest part. It's easy to rely on someone else to make those difficult decisions.
"I didn't do anything blatantly stupid. But even measured risks, when you are by yourself, make you think even harder."
According to sports, exercise and health psychology researcher Dr Ben Jackson of The University of Western Australia, the two pursuits could be driven by the same personality traits. Achieving corporate success and mastering challenging sports generally require similar levels of motivation, discipline and willingness to take a risk.
"This idea of sensation-seeking [chasing adventure], being goal-directed and looking for a challenge, those traits probably provide benefits in their workplace but also encourage them to make these decisions around the activities they do as well," Jackson said.
"There is also some evidence that when you feel like a number of domains in your life have certain requirements, then that self-confidence that you develop in one domain, maybe it is in work, can actually jump across and translate into other domains. These sports that we would look at as being fairly challenging, maybe the people that are doing them see some kind of consistent requirements from other areas, that jump across and give them the confidence to at least try them."
Mike Young, managing director of uranium hopeful Vimy Resources, is preparing to cover over 700 kilometres on a five-day cycling event from Albany through Western Australia's south west to Perth. It will be the second time Young has participated in the gruelling Ride For Youth charity cycle.
The former founding director of iron ore junior BC Iron will be joined on the ride by fellow iron ore boss, Atlas Iron managing director David Flanagan, who has signed up for the fourth time.
Young, who has loved cycling since he was a child, said he switched from mountain biking to road biking in about 2010.
"Back in the 1990s when I was mountain biking there was no way I was going to be a numpty in lycra," Young laughs. "Now I love doing these big, long, epic rides. Joce [Young's wife] knows exactly how many kilometres I've ridden in a week by how grumpy or not grumpy I am."
Young has also participated in a few Haute Route cycling events, spruiked by organisers as "the highest and toughest cyclosportives in the world". The seven-day races across mountainous Europe push riders to their physical and mental limits. Young is going back for more next   September.
"When you are near the envelope you can't think of anything but your heart rate, cadence, speed, water intake," Young says.
"When I go downhill, I have hit [speeds of] 107 kilometres per hour in the Pyrenees and I think 92 kilometres an hour is my top speed on Welshpool Road [Perth] and that requires total concentration because you are right on the edge.
"It's an adrenalin rush, it's total concentration, you cannot think of work or anything except that moment. And that would be the common thread I think between all the stuff that high performing people do, anything that is remotely extreme just requires total concentration and a complete absence of every other thought."
Evolution Mining chairman Jake Klein agrees. The head of the ASX's second-largest gold miner has run countless marathons, ultramarathons and triathlons and recently completed the Sydney half-marathon with his daughter and niece.
"The volatility in this industry is extreme so I do find that an hour of exercise every morning clears the head a bit," Klein says.
"The other thing I do love is skiing, and when you are looking down from the top of a hill and you are going to try and get to the bottom, you are unlikely to be thinking of challenges at work."