As I see it, there are four types of people for a game like chess:
Non-player
Beginner
Player
Obsessive
You can’t be a chess grandmaster unless you fall into the Obsessive category.
Come to think of it, you can’t be a grandmaster at anything without being an Obsessive. All professional athletes. High-level music professionals. Political operatives. Physicians. World-class educators.
You can’t be truly great without being obsessive about what you want to be great at.
But there is plenty of room to be a player without being obsessive. You can have a life to be proud of by being a player as a musician, as an athlete, as a gamer. Too often, we expect our students to be obsessive, and too often, our students think that if they aren’t obsessive, there’s no room for them in that particular world.
Teach people with the goal of them being players. The obsessives will take care of themselves.