It’s late May, and Emily O’Brien is packing up her belongings for the second time in six months.

Her first move took her from a Kitchener prison, where she spent 10 months for smuggling drugs, to a residential halfway house in Dundas.

Now, she’s heading back into the community.

Since leaving Grand Valley Institution for Women in December, it’s been a bit of a whirlwind for the 30-year-old Hamilton woman, who was recently granted full parole after being sentenced to four years in prison in 2015.

In the last six months, she has pitched to a panel of judges on CBC’s business reality television show Dragons’ Den, given more than 40 talks at schools, women’s groups and corporations and continued to grow her specialty popcorn business Cons & Kernels.

Now, the 30-year-old is building sets for her new podcast Criminally Acclaimed, which is being produced with Digital Canaries Entertainment, and preparing to launch a “mini-flagship” location for her business at Dundas’ The HOP Urban Market — formerly the Horn of Plenty — after making her gourmet popcorn in shared kitchen space at The Kitchen Collective for the past few months.

Needless to say, O’Brien has been busy.

Read more: A Hamilton woman’s journey from St. Lucia to prison

“This is what I know I’m capable of,” said O’Brien, who recently moved back to her mom’s house before she gets her own place later this summer. “With the energy I was born with, now I’m channelling that into way better things.”

In July 2015, O’Brien was arrested at Pearson airport for importing drugs on her way back from a trip to St. Lucia.

While coming back into the country with her co-accused, she was stopped by a border services officer to whom she confessed having close to five pounds of cocaine sewn into her underwear.

She later pleaded guilty to the offence and was sentenced to four years in prison, which is where she brainstormed the idea behind and launched her business.

The HOP Urban Market owner Jason Gloster first connected with O’Brien when she delivered her popcorn to his parents.

After meeting her and learning about her drive and passion, Gloster invited O’Brien to launch a pop-up shop at his location this summer. In turn, he hopes his business will benefit from her social media following.

“Her story is what I really liked,” he said. “Everybody makes mistakes and does dumb stuff when we’re young.

“She’s just a very intriguing, inspiring, really driven person, and she’s local.”

While her focus is now directed toward having a positive impact on herself and others, O’Brien says her decisions weren’t all negative before she went to prison.

She worked hard to build her small social-media venture during the day, which is how she met her co-accused, but she would party hard at night.

“There are definitely some days that I still miss that lifestyle, but I’ve replaced that socializing at night and partying with socializing in the morning, going to the gym, meeting new people,” O’Brien said.

One of the people she met is Simon Winterson of Digital Canaries.

The two connected over a photo shoot at the large film company’s prison set, and once they met in person, Winterson found O’Brien to be a “real character” with an interesting story to tell.

He asked if she’d be interested in doing an audio and video podcast for their entertainment division, and the rest is history.

O’Brien is “living proof” you can’t rush to make assumptions about someone based on their history, he said.

“You can never judge a book by its cover,” he said.

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With the hard work she’s put in over the last six months, O’Brien was granted full parole, which means she doesn’t have to do check-ins anymore, and she no longer has to call from a landline once per day.

She must still stay away from bars and report her relationships.

After getting out of prison, O’Brien wanted to share her story with the hope of helping others before they got into the same trouble she did, but she didn’t know how it would be received.

She said she’s been surprised by the number of people who have reached out to offer support but also by the ways in which she’s having an impact on others.

She hopes by being candid about her journey, she will encourage others in the system to share their story and see where it can lead them.

“A mistake can lead you one place but so can owning that mistake,” O’Brien said. “Obviously you’re not proud of it, but I am proud of how I’m owning it.”

O’Brien’s dad said he is “very, very proud,” too.

While his daughter was in prison, John O’Brien said part of their discussions focused on what social good could come from Emily’s experience.

“You’ve had a terrible experience, albeit self-inflicted, but at the same time ... even if you could prevent one girl from facing the same type of situation that she did, then it would be a good use of her enthusiasm and energy,” he said.

But he couldn’t have imagined it would go quite the way it has in how Emily has turned a “difficult situation into a good situation.”

“As we went along and kind of journeyed along with her, we did start to see the light at the end of the tunnel,” he said. “Looking at her relatively young age, there was a great life ahead if she chose to pursue that direction, and that’s the encouragement we sought to give.”

Next for O’Brien is focusing more on her speaking engagements and hiring people to represent Cons & Kernels on the street.

She is selling her product at places including the YWCA’s Business Out of the Box and is working on other partnerships going forward.

She’s also working with a few legal firms to help their clients prepare for prison and is planning to write a book.

“I’m really actually proud of myself,” she said. “I realize I’m capable of so much.”