In her new memoir, Samantha Power writes about the “X test.” As she describes it, “in trying for Y, the most I accomplish is X.” In other words, even if “Y” is likely to fail, what “X” can be learned along the way? Power has experienced some of those failures and made some bold moves in her life. Some weren’t up to her, like moving from Ireland to the U.S. at the age of 9. As a young adult, she jumped into the fray as a reporter during The Balkan Wars, later writing a Pulitzer Prize-winning book that took the American government to task for failing to stop genocides around the world. She would later become Ambassador to the U.N. under President Obama.