“Our ultimate freedom is the right and power to decide how anybody or anything outside ourselves will affect us.” – Stephen R. Covey
A great quote; in fact, I have never heard the concept of "free will" ever expressed this way. Only humans maintain the power to choose: good over "evil" or to go right or left. However, being human is being finite and our "will" is highly influenced by many things. A few influencers: age, race, sex, nationality, education, health, religion, and life experiences might be called a partial list. I ask who has best exercised their freedom to become all that they could be -- Mother Teresa or Tiger Woods?
To be sure both have "chosen" ways not often traveled and had the discipline to allow themselves to be influenced by very different people and things. Mother Teresa chose to follow a lifelong path of self-sacrificing service to the very poor. Tiger Woods is a strong athlete and one of the best golfers of all time, yet he allowed other choices to become habitual, eventually destroying his freedom and his married life. Fortunately, Tiger still has time to make additional choices.
Likewise, you are free to choose to become all that you can be professionally, mentally, physically and spiritually by allowing some people or things to influence you.