When having a conversation with Geoffrey Kent, the founder of one of the most recognised luxury travel brands in the world, Abercrombie & Kent, you are quickly catapulted into his tales of taking 5 Gs in a Lightning jet above Cape Town to racing Ferraris, expeditions to the top of Kilimanjaro to diving with sharks in the Maldives. We challenge you to find another CEO living a more extreme life than this one, let alone the fact that Kent is 67 years old. "Age is only a state of mind," he tells me. SWASHBUCKLER BY DAY, ROYALTY BY NIGHT Geoffrey Kent grew up on the family farm in the Aberdare Highlands of Kenya. He explains that his upbringing was "a juxtaposition of absolutely incredibly raw adventurous experiences during the day, with incredible sophistication at night." His mother was an "elegant lady from London" and regardless of the adventures of his day - having shot his first elephant at 16 - his evenings were filled with "wearing a suit for dinner and toasting the king on beautiful cut glass, silver, and china." A year after the elephant incident, he set out to explore Africa, traversing the continent from Kenya to Cape Town and becoming the first person to complete the 5,000-mile journey on a motorcycle. This was enhanced by keeping with the family tradition of attending the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst. He saw action with the British Forces in Aden, Libya, Kuwait and Yemen. "I was in all these hot spots fighting during the day, but at night you'd have elegant dinners in the 5th Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards Officers Mess, surrounded by oil paintings." During his time in the army, he, along with his parents, founded Abercrombie & Kent in 1962. There isn't a Mr. Abercrombie - to make sure the company would come first in the alphabetical Yellow Page listings Kent created `Abercrombie' then added his last name. His philosophy for his luxury travel business leveraged his military training of detailed planning and logistics combined with his passionate zeal for daytime adventures and elegant nights. This dichotomy proved to be the foundation of A&K: "I would build this camp to be like an oasis, caviar, cut glass, ice, the best champagne, but 50 hippos from a nearby river would also be watching you." DAVID ROCKEFELLER & BILL GATES "I believe ever since I took David Rockefeller and others on safari in 1960s, I think we have been changing people's lives." Through the unique experiences, Kent further elaborates, you show people something they have never imagined before because "you immerse them in this foreign land and with your enthusiasm, you show them how amazing this world really is." During these luxury travel adventures with the business elite, many that lasted 30 days, he would take avid notes at night on his yellow pad and felt he could be a successful businessman. "I think what I have done is create a business by listening to all these wonderful people." A&K took Bill Gates on his first safari to Africa and still remembers what Gates said: "My slogan is, if it works, it's obsolete." A&K are constantly searching the globe for new travel adventures and Geoffrey Kent makes sure to try out each one, which keeps him on the road over 150 days each year. When asked what other lessons he's learned he energetically says: "If people have a passion, they should follow it and make it into their business. That's the best life you can have. So many people are unhappy with their work and are only interested in building a business and selling it." When he is not on the road, Kent lives in Monaco, but also has homes in London and Nairobi, Kenya. ADRENALINE JUNKIE Listening to Geoffrey Kent, it's obvious this man requires adrenaline. And with his extraordinary tales of adventures, such as diving with sharks in the Maldives and white water rafting beneath the Victoria Falls, he certainly gets plenty of it. But his need for the extreme is no more evident than when he shares the experience of flying in an English Electric Lightning Fighter Jet above Cape Town: "We went from sea level to 40,000 feet in a minute and I took on 5Gs." From the cockpit, he could even see the curvature of the earth. "Anything that creates adrenaline changes your life and I want my life changed every single day; I don't want to sit for a minute to think that one week could go by without something happening." CHANGING PEOPLE'S LIVES With the holiday season in full swing, who better than Geoffrey Kent - a man who has done it all - to dole out some gift-giving advice. His recommendation? A travel holiday, naturally. He explains that it is the best gift you could give, because everyone in the family can share in it. "Nothing is more valuable today than family time, we all work too hard." Plus he explains that travel experiences are the only true time families can bond - and that doesn't mean going to a city by the way; it's going to Antarctica or some other exotic location. In a city, Kent believes, everyone wants to go somewhere different, but "if you are together to dive with a whale shark, or climb Kilimanjaro", you will remember it forever. "They instantly forget a Cartier watch you get for Christmas, but they do not forget the time they saw the wildebeest migration cross the Mara River or a cheetah giving birth to beautiful cubs in the Masai Mara," he says. Almost a half century after he started Abercrombie & Kent, he has grown it into a multimillion dollar company with 62 offices around the world and 2,322 committed employees that aim to "exceed the dreams of our guests as we change their lives forever with passion and commitment…that's what we do."