The Quiet Warrior Podcast with Serena Low

116. The Science of Good Times: How to Design a Life of Flow and Fulfillment (Christian Schnepf)

• Serena Low, Introvert Coach for Quiet Achievers and Quiet Warriors

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In this thought-provoking episode of The Quiet Warrior Podcast, I talk with Christian Schnepf, founder of The Science of Good Times and creator of the Good Times App — the world’s first data-based navigation system for life.

Drawing on years of cross-cultural exploration and PhD-level research at Shanghai University, Christian shares his mission to make the conscious pursuit of good times the number one priority in human life. Blending philosophy, physics, and psychology, he reveals how we can cultivate more flow, joy, and fulfillment — not by doing more, but by learning when to let go, relax, and be fully present.

Key Takeaways

  • The turning point: Christian’s personal crisis led him to question conventional success and seek a more meaningful design for life.
  • Defining a “good time”: A moment when you feel fully attracted to your experience — who you are, where you are, what you do, who you’re with, and what you receive.
  • The five life areas:
    1. Self
    2. Social relationships
    3. Actions
    4. Rewards (money, love, acknowledgement)
    5. Environment
  • The flow of energy: Good times occur when energy flows freely; bad times signal energy blockages.
  • The art of doing nothing: True rest means surrendering control — not performing, producing, or even trying to relax.
  • Fear vs. love: We either move away from fear or toward love. Living consciously means walking toward what attracts and nourishes us.
  • The role of awareness: Checking in with ourselves helps reveal what truly feels good, rather than what society or algorithms dictate.
  • The Good Time Ratio (GTR): A simple metric to track how often you feel attracted to your experiences — a practical step toward more conscious living.


Connect with Christian Schnepf

Website: https://chrisw.co

GoodTime App: https://goodtime.app

YouTube: https: //www.youtube.com/@chriswgt

Instagram: https: //www.instagram.com/chrisw.gt/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chrisw.gt/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisw-gt


Connect with Serena

If you’re a quiet woman leader ready to be visible without performing extroversion or burning out, the Visible Introvert community has the solution. Visit us at serenalow.com.au.


This episode was edited by Aura House Productions

SPEAKER_00

Welcome to the Quiet Warrior Podcast. Today's guest is Christian Knep. Christian is the founder of the Science of Good Times, an adventurous sociologist and human behavior expert, and the founder of Good Time App, the world's first databased navigation system for life. Christian is dedicated to making the conscious pursuit of good times the number one priority in human life, and has been featured by now on TEDx, China Daily, and on Shanghai's Broadway screens via China Central Television. Its work is rooted in years of cross-cultural exploration and a PhD level research project at Shanghai University and bridges scientific insight with real-world transformation. By blending philosophy, data-driven design, systems thinking, and soul, he delivers practical solutions to individuals, organizations, and universities worldwide challenging the deepest beliefs of people about how life works. Welcome, Christian, to the Quiet Warrior Podcast.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you, Serena. It's my pleasure to be here.

SPEAKER_00

Christian, can we start by asking you to tell us your story and the professional journey to getting here?

From Success To Emptiness

Building A Metric For Good Times

SPEAKER_01

Yes, my story, I mean, the question again, where do I start? But I think I started the point where I've been with beginning of 20s quite successful with what I did according to societal standards, where I had good grades in university, I ran my own business besides university, traveling every week, was in a good shape, had lots of friends, and yet I felt increasingly empty. So I started questioning the societal design of success and life, and was really at a point where I where I didn't want to live anymore. I didn't see to, I didn't see a point in being alive anymore, because it wouldn't just, it wouldn't lead to more fulfillment. It would just bridge the gap between I'm dying anyway. So at one point, to not get too much into details here, at one point I decided to go on, but I told myself it got to be different. I don't know if it gets better, if it gets different, but it got to be different, that it can get better. So I treated life as a bonus round and was looking for ways how I can live better, more fulfilled. And fast forward when I tested different approaches still within my own country, Germany, and I didn't really find more, I set out to look for a different life design. I said, okay, let's look at different cultures and see how life can be. Something radically different I'm not experienced, I didn't experience before. And seeing maybe different is better. And I tested this and eventually found some things that I said, like this, I didn't see that before. That's that's quite good. And yet, why does how can I tell that it's really better for everyone? I couldn't tell that either. So at one point I started a PhD to find the factors with the objective to find the factors that really improve life satisfaction and those that decrease life satisfaction in order to pinpoint really which one works and which doesn't. However, uh there was one problem along that it required that we can measure accurately what factor is improving and what factor is negatively impacting the good times. And this metric didn't exist. So I started developing one, and that's now the fourth year of refinement, and it worked, and it still works, of course. And it works in a very profound way to see what makes life great and can pinpoint it accordingly. So in my professional work, I realized also the one objective that every human is pursuing, that it is maximizing good times, as good in the moment and for as long as possible. And with this as a goal, I was also asking myself, why don't we all pursue it consciously? Because it is subconsciously anything, something we do, anyway, something we do. So um it became I, it became my mission to set it as a to promote this conscious pursuit of maximizing good times, to promote it that people in their personal life say, okay, my goal is anyway to maximize my good times. Let's do it consciously. Let's don't guess around. Let's make it properly that it works. And also for society and economy, for businesses, they pursue the same goal basically. So let's do it properly. And this is basically what I'm doing with my work in different ways through whether it's podcasts, whether it's giving speeches, whether it is coaching, whether it gives retreats. Um, currently I'm writing a book, all of those things should lead to this direction.

Defining A Good Time: Five Areas

SPEAKER_00

Thank you for sharing that journey. My question to you then is how do you define great times or even good times?

SPEAKER_01

A good time is generally something we feel appealed towards. It's uh it's a snapshot of the moment in the present that we feel attracted to be in. And to be more con more concrete, what this moment is made up, it's made up out of five life areas. So one of the areas is myself. Am I attracted in this very moment to be myself and like to spend time with myself? Then it's social time. When I'm with other people, am I attracted in this moment to spend my time exactly with those people? Am I attracted to those people? Then it's my actions. Am I attracted doing the things I'm doing in this very moment, or do I prefer to do something else? Then also the things I'm getting in return. It's not necessarily just money, it can be also acknowledgement, it can be can be love, it can be attention. Am I satisfied and am I attracted by the things I'm getting? The level of attention, for example. And lastly, am I attracted to the location I'm in? Am I attracted to be exactly here where I am in this moment? Or did I prefer to be somewhere else? And if we measure this in that very moment, then we basically can say in the maximum amplitude, I love who I am, I love with whom I am, I love what I do, I love what I get, and I love where I am. And that would be the ultimate good time.

Can Life Feel Good Continuously

SPEAKER_00

Beautiful. That's very, very succinct, especially the last that last bit, the way you explained it with the I statements. I think that's very powerful. And that helps us relate to all these holistic aspects of life. So you came up with this definition of a great life or good times, which is a a snapshot or a a screenshot, a frozen, maybe a sliver of this time, this now time, and then how to maximize that. What does it mean to maximize that? Because surely it's not possible to have a great time all the time.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that's an assumption. And many years ago it was literally this question is it possible to have a good time all the time? And there were a lot of philosophical debates around it. Um, sometimes some people argued, okay, uh, do I need a bad time to have a good time? Some believe that. And uh many years ago I also said, honestly, I don't know. And meanwhile, I believe it is possible to have a good time all the time. Because a good time roots back to physics, actually, physics and biology, why we why we in the first place are able to perceive something is good or bad. And it's very simple, actually. And physics, there's just one law distributing energy. Energy needs to flow. So if any organism, including the human organism, energy is flowing, we get a we get a signal, an indicator that do more of this, keep it, or go more in this direction where it flows more freely. And generally, this is perceived as some positive reward, positive emotion. In other words, we have a good time. While when I'm having a bad time, this is nothing else that just the as the physical expression of energy is blocked. So I need to change it instantly. But with that understanding, it is also obvious we don't need to block energy in order that energy can free, uh, can flow freely. We can optimize our systems in a way, we can optimize to the to a very small degree eventually how our lives are designed, that energy is just flowing constantly. And that's that's why I'm saying theoretically, we don't need to have a bad time to have a good time. And theoretically, we can have good times all the time. We just didn't figure it out yet as humans in our lifetime, as society is complex, as society didn't prioritize it yet, and as our lives also are not designed by by an algorithm yet, say it like this, where we where we can navigate our lives and our life choices uh to a high precision. So perhaps one day a generation will be able to do that, and then the philosophical question will be answered. Yes, um, we have no proven and yes, it's possible to have a good time all the time.

Energy Flow, Physics And Biology

SPEAKER_00

So you talked about it in terms of energy, energy flow, energy blockage. And I can resonate with that from the perspective of traditional Chinese medicine, because that's what we are taught as well. That when the energy is stagnant because you are not moving or because you're stressed, then that energy is not flowing, and that can cause physical conditions, that can cause illnesses, that can also cause emotional blockages. So they're all linked, and that makes sense to me. So, what are your uh thoughts on how we can increase energy flow or how we can remove some of these energetic barriers in our own lives?

Action Versus Surrender Cycles

SPEAKER_01

I think a very important aspect to understand is that energy is sometimes tensioned, so funneled, directed towards one outcome, and sometimes it's just flowing in all directions. So, generally, when we funnel it, we concentrate, literally, we put focus onto something, we put our attention onto something specific, and then we do some stuff. So we're more in action mode, say it like this. While in other moments we are more in the passive mode where our energy is flowing freely, we consume, we just relax and recover. And in those moments, we let go of all the control. Our environment controls us, and we need to feel safe doing so, being there. So nowadays we have the tendencies for most of us to be constantly feeling we need to be in control and need to do something. And that is actually contraproductive because it's always it's always a always uh always goes in phases. We have intentional, uh we have high tensity moments, and then we have high relaxation moments. So after a high tensity moment, the logical consequence or the logical next step would be a high relaxation moment. So really doing nothing, basically, not even consuming media. That's also something we put our attention to. It is just being in the present and perhaps just doing nothing. And that's that's an art in itself, doing nothing. Or even if I'm doing breath work and I'm concentrating again on I need to I need to breathe correctly, it's basically again I'm forcing. So meditation is a wonderful tool to counter that when mastered. In a moment, someone mastered meditation to an expect uh to an extent where he or she knows what it really means to let go of all the thoughts or the temptations to put the focus on. In that moment, that is highly effective. So that's one way, but it's not the only way. So for people to be concretely concrete, what we can do is I can sometimes when energy is not flowing, sometimes I need to bring it to flow by pushing myself, by doing something, by utilizing my body, by putting my attention onto something worth putting my attention onto. And in other moments, doing the complete opposite, just relaxing and releasing all the pressure, letting go of all the obligations I'm having in my mind and thinking, like I need to do something. Tomorrow I still need to do this, or today I need to do this, this laundry, whatever that is. And in that moment, just allowing oneself and saying, I'm letting go, I don't need to do anything. It's just nothing. I'm fine, I'm perfect where I am right now, and I'm surrendering to my situation and my environment and yet feeling safe. So something concrete what someone can do is securing some time of the day, some moments of the day, some hours of the day, or maybe even longer, where he or she can argue with him or herself that really there is nothing I need to do. It's all safe. I have five minutes, and if there is really coming with something within five minutes, it cannot be that important. I can somehow trust and secure five minutes of peace. And in those five minutes, whenever a thought comes up, I need to do that or whatever, it's fine. I can give myself this permission to not have to follow this thought in this moment. This has time for this can be something for another time. So really letting go of everything, of any concern in a moment is crucial to feel to come to this ultimate relaxation. And this is something that we can benefit from and learn from more in our modern, very high-paced lives, to have moments of no obligations, of no, I need to do something. And if we manage to do this in those five life areas, including the social area. So if I'm when I'm with people, understanding that silence isn't awkward, that silence can be fine, is already a huge win. If you feel always you need to perform and you're with someone in a relationship, it's not a sustainable relationship. It can be very exciting for some time, but eventually you're you're burning out, even though it's your partner. So it is some, it's an art, I would say. An art our ancestors and also the Chinese ancestors definitely learned already about the art of doing nothing, the art of being in peace and letting go, the art of not feeling I need to be in control. And I'm pointing this out specifically because I'm I'm seeing that this is a major pain point nowadays. There are many things what we need to learn, what are the the arts of also being concentrated on something specific, the art of not running away from a pain. However, those things are, I think the major the major benefit or the major thing we could benefit from learning nowadays and focus on is what I just said. This letting go.

Letting Go And The Art Of Rest

SPEAKER_00

It's an irony that the more we study, the more we know, and the more we innovate. At the same time, it puts so much performance anxiety, so much pressure on us to learn one more thing, master one more skill, learn one more technique, that we have to learn techniques in order to relax. When relaxation should just come naturally to the human being, because we're not wired to be switched on all the time, but our modern lifestyles have conditioned us that way, that we are in a hyper state of, you know, hyper-aroused and overstimulated. And so we don't even know how to rest. We get uncomfortable. That's what you said. We get uncomfortable with the silence, it gets awkward. And I think the introverts listening to this will be very relieved to know, to hear you say that silence is not awkward. Silence is actually such a blessing. It's sacred. It gives you space to breathe and to think and to reflect and to let your mind wander. And we need more and more of that, the the noisier the world gets. But at the same time, the very thought of, oh, do I even have five minutes to not think about anything? What does it mean to not think about anything? And then we start thinking, and our brains are like are perpetually busy. And it's it's as though having a white space, a blank space, it's so uncomfortable.

Fear, Love And Sustainable Pace

SPEAKER_01

And it comes from fear, actually. So what I found out in the science of good times is that we have two drivers. We're walking towards things, and that mobilizes us to get towards a desired outcome, or we walk away from an outcome, from a potential outcome. So when we walk away from something, it is always fear-driven. When we walk towards something, it's always love-driven. And so, in simple terms. So, to have a good time, as I said initially, we need to be attracted to be in this situation. So basically, walking towards the situation. And if we do that constantly and live our lives walking towards things, it is basically inevitable that at one point when we run out of energy, we say, now it's attractive to me to rest. I did enough. I was running and working hard because I wanted to do this, I wanted to put my focus on it, but I have limited energy. So I'm running out, and now it's time to rest. Usually the natural cycle is at the end of the day to recover, and the next day I can get my focus on something again, to do action, to take action. However, the only reason to proceed, even though so not coming to rest, and just instead of pushing further, is because we want to avoid consequences. So I did something because I wanted to get the outcome, and at one point I'm feeling tired, and then I'm thinking, but I need to continue, otherwise, the consequence comes that I don't want. And like I need to do this because if I don't do it, then I have the problem. So that's the that's the underlying way of thinking. And because of this fear, we never rest. We don't allow us to rest. And our society promotes this a lot. We basically are just presented all the great action moments. I mean, social media, not just social media, but also movies, every story is not presenting the relaxation times. They present the action times because that's get that's what our attention that grabs our attention. So being constantly bombarded basically with action around us makes us think this is what I have to do. Resting is no action. In other words, it's not attraction, attractive. I don't get attention. If I don't get attention, I don't get my needs fulfilled. So I need to be in action. But understanding that this is not sustainable and even the things we get presented as just snapshots, snapshots from um from moments. Yeah, it's it's one second, takes one second to take a picture, and people see that picture and think like, wow, that's the whole life. However, the day has a lot of seconds. So it's there's a lot of time where nothing happens. And if you if everyone would post those nothing happens moments, people wouldn't be attracted. Which in the opposite direction uh would also mean I'm starting to look on my own life instead of looking for on others. I would look into my own life and say, okay, this is not so excited what someone else is doing, which is real, not it's not 24-7 exciting. And if someone has 24-7 exciting, then it's literally after seven-day end because then it's burning out. So it's not it's not constantly exciting to watch someone else's life. And understanding that also frees up capacity to look on their own life and saying, How would I like to live my moments? And in order to have an exciting moment, I also want to have a moment of relaxation again. So it's perfectly fine to rest and give yourself this talk, talk talk to yourself, or also in my case, talk to myself in a way. It's okay to do nothing, it's okay to chill here and just be present. I don't need to do something right now. I'm not missing out of anything. It's all there what I'm having. And having a little assessment of yourself, am I complete just checking in? Do I have everything I really need in this moment? Just a just a brief coaching question, basically. Yes, I'm I'm having all the nutrition I need right now. I can breathe. I'm in a warm place. I'm not even hungry, honestly. Um actually I'm complete. I I'm existing in this very moment. That's fine, that's good. And that can can let go or can free up already already a lot of stress and beliefs of I need more.

SPEAKER_00

It sounds like an antidote to a busy and overthinking life. But what I heard was the importance of self awareness and regular checking in with your Yourself, asking yourself, how are you feeling? How are you doing? Does this attract you? Is it time to rest? How do you feel in your body? So that's the self-awareness piece, which I think is the foundational piece of everything. And then after that comes the self-acceptance and the self-compassion, which is giving yourself permission to do something different or to not do anything at all. And I think that self-compassion piece is really important because the world outside keeps telling us we have to be doing something. We have to be showing up, we have to be visible, we have to let people know what we are doing, otherwise we don't exist. And that's why we're constantly chasing and you know, checking our other people, comparing ourselves, and then we feel maybe we feel some imposter syndrome or we feel like, oh, our lives are very bland compared to those people's lives. But then as you pointed out, what we see of other people's lives and what we show of other people of our lives is just the highlights real. We don't show all the behind-the-scenes stuff, the bland, the boring, the the mundane, everyday things because we think nobody's interested. But actually those blank spaces are where we recover and we recharge and we reset and become ourselves again. Because nobody is wired to be hyper-functioning all the time. There is a cost. And you did mention that we will burn out even after seven days of nonstop consumption of social media or news or anything that's overly stimulating.

Self-Checkins And Highlight Reels

SPEAKER_01

Yes. Yeah, absolutely. You summarized it well. The awareness part is a big aspect. And with the metric I developed, which is good time ratio GTR, so measures the proportion of the moments you feel attracted to versus them that you not feel attracted to. We developed even an app for that. It's goodtime.app, it's a web app currently. And in the in the prototesting, prototype testing, we onboarded people and in a live in live calls, where I also saw what happens for the people when they just assess their good times in that moment. And there were some things, for example, you you fill in what how did you spend your time during the day? So doing the things. One area is actions. And then some people said being on social media. And it took them a lot of time. So they spent a lot of time on social media, but then they had to rate how do I like it? Do I hate it? Do I am I okay? Do I like it or even love it? And it was astonishing how most people just put in actually, I don't even like it. Some moments were it's okay, yeah, it's not good, but it's okay. But they're they didn't even like it, and yet they think like I need to be on it. And that's, I mean, we can go to go into chemicals, and that's a dopamine hijacked uh situation where the dopamine is hijacked. However, just generally we can say people got the awareness I'm not liking, I'm not having a good time being on social media. Or in other cases, we have people who assessed their family dinners, and that's something you do for pleasure. You do that, you go there to have a good time, and then realizing actually I didn't have a good time. So maybe let me change something. And in other moments, I thought, like, I'm doing this because I have to do it, and realize actually I do like going to work. That's that's nice. So it changes the perspective eventually and releases also removes the inner blockages, the inner resistance towards certain things. And um, this awareness part is is crucial. Unfortunately, our brain is not evolved to have all the be able to process all the input of a modern life. So we are quite limited in that, and that's where I find and where I see that technology can help out a lot on that point, to get more awareness by seeing the total picture, even though our brain can just process something like a couple of minutes of a moment, and the rest is interpretation, it's not an accurate, and then and just then the brain outputs again to our conscious mind um those interpreted data basically, but not the raw data, and um they can be highly inaccurate. So having having a dashboard, having the overview that supports increased awareness can be ultimately beneficial.

SPEAKER_00

And how often would you recommend people to check in using the app to assess their five life areas?

The Good Time Ratio And App

SPEAKER_01

That really highly depends on their situation in their life. If someone is in a highly transformative situation where everything is changing, I'm moving to a different place, I just got out of a relationship, I'm changing my job. Well, in those moments, you want to get as much data as possible to make as good decisions as possible. So checking in daily does make sense. However, if your life is more stable, you perhaps just want to check in whether you're staying on track and make slight adjustments every couple of days to make make gradual improvements. So, on average, we recommend two to three times a week to make a check-in, which takes in average 10 minutes. And it gives you a trend and lets you optimize on the on the directions. Um, and even though you don't want to optimize in some moments, checking in once a week at least makes sense though, too. Because at the end of the day, in some months or so, you might you might have some changes. And and then you're saying, oh, but before it was so much better, and then you're seeing actually the data that it wasn't. So your brain just brought it up, or the other way around. That you say, um, it was so bad in the past, and now it's so much better because you're in a new situation and you're actually realizing actually in the past when I didn't have a penthouse, I felt more fulfilled than now the penthouse with my job, for example. So seeing seeing that graph makes sense, uh, therefore, once a week minimum makes sense. However, I recommend making it twice to minimum to avoid fluctuations where we see, okay, I just made a check-in on a Sunday where I didn't have any obligations and I missed my Wednesday. So if you make Wednesday and Sunday, you usually have a good, a good average you can draw from.

SPEAKER_00

And where could people go to download your app, Chris Richard?

SPEAKER_01

It's currently a web app, so not download downloadable. It's just going in the web browser on goodtime.app, goodtime.ap. And make this assessment. First time takes probably a little bit longer, 20 minutes, but eventually afterwards it's 10 minutes. And yeah, get your first insights.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you. What is one thing you want the listeners, especially the introverts and the quiet achievers, to take away from our conversation today?

SPEAKER_01

To realize how attracted they are in their moments. Say like this: if you're an introvert and you're believing that being alone gives you energy, while being with others takes your energy, it is worthy noticing or asking, is this true? Am I really, when I'm alone, gaining energy? Or when I'm with this certain kind of people, just get my energy drained. While I'm with other people, I'm actually gaining energy. Because it's not about being introvert and avoiding all social contacts. Perhaps you get a lot of joy and a lot of energy out of social contacts if you are in the right social environment. And you can check in with that, just asking yourself, okay, maybe I'm feeling uncomfortable here with those people. However, that doesn't mean I need to be alone. Maybe I can just find different people and yeah, create the life you actually desire.

SPEAKER_00

I love that. I love that you the way you've designed it allows for all these nuances, the variables, and it makes us more specific, I think, in our inquiries. So we're not making these blanket assumptions based on hearsay or popular opinion. We're actually questioning them, being intellectually curious, and therefore we're getting more accurate data that is useful for our own personal situation. So that is extremely helpful. So I want to thank you so much, Christian, for coming on the Quiet Warrior Podcast today to share your time and your wisdom with us about the science of good times and showing us how what those five life areas are, how we can use your app to measure our satisfaction over those five areas and how we can check in continually with ourselves so that we can stay self-aware and also be self-compassionate and not constantly expect ourselves to be functioning the way the external environment dictates, which is to rush into things, to be hustling all the time, to be over-busy and over-stimulated, but actually to be thoughtful about how we're using our time and whether we are being attracted to certain things in life or we are being repelled. And that is useful data as well. So thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you for having me. And that is share this. I wish everyone is a great journey ahead of them.

How Often To Measure And Why

SPEAKER_00

Thank you. If you want to become visible without having to act extroverted, join the visible introvert community at Serenalo.com.au. This is where I share the skills on how to be memorable and impactful without changing who you are. See you on the next episode. I'm so grateful that you're here today. If you found this content valuable, please share it on your social media channels and subscribe to the show on your favorite listening platform. Together we can help more introverts thrive. To receive more uplifting content like this, connect with me on Instagram at Serenalo Quiet Warrior Coach. Thank you for sharing your time and your energy with me. See you on the next episode.